


The Garden Part 2

by Throwthemflowers



Series: The Garden [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 1969, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Sex, Biblical Reinterpretation, Harry as Jesus, Implied Police Brutality, Louis as Judas, M/M, Miracles, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SDS, Supernatural Elements, Taylor Swift as Mary Magdalene, Veteran Louis, Vietnam War, Virgin Harry Styles, Zayn as John the Baptist, graphic memories of violence, if you know the story of Jesus and Judas I don't shirk on the ending, the disciples are made up of taylor swift and aiden and bebe and the other cast of characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:26:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Throwthemflowers/pseuds/Throwthemflowers
Summary: It's 1969 and Louis Tomlinson has returned from Vietnam wounded not only physically, but in sprit. When his only chance at healing comes from a source he cannot bear to remember, he's forced to test the strength of his love by not only forgiving himself, but stealing from God.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: The Garden [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695916
Comments: 67
Kudos: 68





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you first to the itty bitty writers GC, Nina, Chloe, Jinny, Phoenix, and Blake, without you guys this wouldn't have come into existence. Thank you then to Nina, @patternpals on tumblr, who took so much of their time to help me craft Zayn's character. Thank you to Holly @metal-eye, for the relentless encouragement, and to Cat for helping when I got utterly stuck and frustrated with my plot lines, and then of COURSE to my wonderful time period/historical betas, Lynda, Cathy, and Sheri. I am endlessly grateful you were willing to take the time to read this! Part 2 has been over a year in the making, and is possibly the hardest thing I've ever written; pages of notes and agonizing over plot and watching 20 plus hours of documentaries and multiple history books... so yeah. I focus on only a very narrow strip of history from this time period; SO many cultural movements occurred during this time, shifting the power structures not only in the US but around the world. Please remember this is a reincarnation AU, and as such there is MCD at the end. Part 3 will be coming as soon as possible! As always I'm @hazzabeeforlou on tumblr. Much love and thank you for reading, Toni

Sunset stretches out along the curved horizon line. The warm, pastel gold is wicked up by clouds like white bread soaked in honey. For the first time in two years Louis notices the beauty of the fading daylight. For the first time in two years he isn’t convinced that this sunset will be his last. 

The plane turns, obscuring his view from the tiny window. 

“Sir? Sir, I brought you these.” 

With a nod, Louis takes the proffered clump of napkins from the stewardess’ manicured fingers. The man next to him, a middle aged fellow with an ample belly and full mustache, stretches in an effort to look away. Louis quickly wipes off the drying globs of spit that dot his uniform. He wishes now he’d changed between base and the domestic flight. A pain in his arm reminds him of the bruises likely to appear tomorrow, dark purple patches in the angular shape of sign edges, perhaps even indented with their owners’ motto, “Make Love Not War.” That would be just his luck. 

The plane lands near midnight at a mercifully empty airport peopled only with flickering lights. Louis finds himself subconsciously looking for cover as he walks through the wide expanse of the terminal; he spots a potted palm tree by the women’s restroom which is entirely unhelpful in quelling his fears. His racing heart refuses to calm, and his rucksack cuts into his weary shoulders, and in a moment of sinking despair he thinks he’s made a mistake coming back home at all. 

“Louis?” 

He stops and looks up. 

_”Mom.”_

She runs towards him, a vision with arms outstretched, bosom rising and falling, tears sparkling in her eyes, until she finally clutches him close. For a moment Louis is numb, shocked as boiling water hits his hibernating heart, but then the permafrost starts to thaw and he feels the ferocity of her hold. He loses track of how long they stand rooted to the terminal floor, his face smothered against her neck as he inhales her smell. 

He promised himself he’d be strong, yet soon he’s trembling in her arms. 

“My boy.” She pulls away and brings her hands up to cup his face, her thumbs drawing soft circles across his cheekbones. “My baby.” 

Louis tries to smile, but a lump has formed in his throat, and it’s insoluble. 

“Give me that. You shouldn’t be carrying _anything_ with that shoulder.” 

“‘S’okay, mom.” But Louis hands over his rucksack anyway, because he knows it’s futile to argue, because he really can’t stand under its weight another moment, because suddenly he feels so _tired,_ , because he’s hollow inside, drained of his essence and refilled with sparse blood and bones, biological building blocks yet not quite _human…_

“Let’s go home, darling.” 

Louis nods and lets his mother take his hand and lead him from one liminal space to another, the terminal to the parking lot. 

She chats about his siblings as they drive through the dark streets of Galeglen, and Louis tries to listen, to retain the information, but he’s started to question reality. Nothing has changed in the two years he’s been away, and the horrors inside him feel like devils here, not memories. He can’t reconcile such sleeping peace with burning jungles halfway around the world. 

As they turn down Virginia Lane streetlights illuminate the one thing that _has_ changed; the house across from theirs has been painted a dull tan, its blue and purple trim exchanged for respectable conformity. The gardens too have been dug up and filled in with grated stones and geometric shrubbery, no more a haven for wildflowers and butterflies and goldfinches. 

His mother sees him staring.

“They moved, right after you left. Anne said with Robin gone, there was no need for such a large place.”

Louis swallows. “Yeah, makes sense.” 

“Did he ever…” She leaves the rest unsaid as she pulls into their driveway. 

“No.” Louis fights against the searing burn in his heart, so different from his usual anguish. 

“Come on darling, I’ll make you some hot chocolate.” 

Louis follows his mother inside, but his legs almost disobey him, almost carry his broken body across the street to bang on the dark wooden door of number 316 in hopes that a boy with curly hair will answer, will see him standing there ruined and desperate and fold him close and comfort him and care for him as was the norm before, back when they were best friends, back when Louis would have sworn not even hell could part them, back before Harry had simply turned his back and walked away. 

* * *

Louis’ cheerios bob in his milk, half soaked, half crisp, and he suddenly wants nothing to do with them. He battles this feeling for a moment, then, upon seeing his roommate watching, lowers his spoon and scoops up a bite. The cheerios taste sweet. How could they have sat for months in a box at the supermarket and still be pristine and perfect and _sweet_? 

“You want the paper, Lou?” 

Louis glances up as Zayn begins maneuvering said paper back into preordained folds. He doesn’t respond. 

“I can—here.” Zayn removes the top-most portion and crumples it. He slides the remainder across the table until it nudges against Louis’ bowl. 

“That bad, huh”

“You were expecting glitter and sunshine?” 

Louis glares down at the sports section, unresponsive once more. Zayn stands and refills his bowl, pinging cheerios followed by the granular dust from the bag’s bottom. 

“Same old, Lou.”

Louis takes another bite, hating the dryness of his cereal’s upper layer. 

“You gonna look again today? Want me to drive you somewhere?” 

“Nah, I’ll…” Louis tries to think up a good lie, “I’m just going local today. Downtown, maybe.”

Zayn hesitates a moment, clearly seeing right through him. “Promise me you’ll leave the house. Just one walk, even around the block. Forget the job even.” 

Louis shrugs. His shoulder hurts. He keeps forgetting that one part of him is more injured than the rest. “Sure.” 

“Louis.” Zayn crouches beside him now, his face set and serious. “It’s not like I have nothing better to do with my time than babysit your pitiful ass. But I’ll fucking _make_ you.” 

He doesn’t deserve Zayn, never has, but the one thing the skinny nerd _can’t_ do well is convincingly threaten anybody. Louis bursts into laughter, full-on belly-clenching chortles, until the table shakes with reverberations. He drops his spoon and leans his head back, closing his eyes against the flaking ceiling, the dusty hanging lamp, the patch of water stains where the tub overflowed. The sheer bluster of Zayn threatening him, _Zayn_ , a pencil-thin college boy who is, if anything, _too_ gentle, who doesn’t even kill spiders, who decorates his apartment with various types of glass because his footfalls are lithe and graceful and unobtrusive and he needn’t worry about a stray jolt breaking all his vases to bits. 

As it always does, Louis’ laughter soon turns to a tight pain in his lungs. He goes silent only to find Zayn still beside him, unamused. 

“What?” 

“You’re the last promise I’m ever making, you know that?” Zayn pushes up and crosses his arms. “I found the bottles under your bed. You haven’t cut back.” 

“Don’t look then.” 

“Oh and for how long, Louis?” 

Louis doesn’t answer. 

“Fuck. I can’t… I _love you _, Lou, I love your family, I love your mom, but you can’t keep going like this. Look, I have to get to class, but please, just _try_ today. There’s salad and pizza in the fridge and my mom sent some Moong Daal. Please eat food, please drink something besides beer, and please get out of this goddamn house.” __

__Zayn steps two inches closer, takes Louis’ face between his hands, and bends to plant a kiss atop his tangled, greasy hair before grabbing his backpack and heading out the door._ _

__Louis tried living at home. He wanted to resume his old life, the easy company of his siblings, the comfort of his mom, but was unable to. The nightmares came first, vivid and cruel, and he could do nothing to stop his screaming save staying awake, which led to waking terrors and daylight phantoms. He tried to escape these any way he could, and the bottles down at the corner store provided the easiest solution._ _

__Something in him was broken, he realized eventually, broken beyond repair, and it seemed crueler to make his family watch him struggle every day than to remove himself and suffer his purgatory somewhere else. Zayn offered to take him in on the excuse that he needed the company, but that was a lie. Their families were old friends, and Louis guessed that their mothers planned the whole thing, recognizing the previous situation as untenable. Maybe they thought Zayn would be a good influence on him._ _

__With his roommate gone Louis pushes the offending cheerios away and turns his attention to the paper. He cares little for sports, less for business, and nothing for entertainment, but his skimming eye catches on the ‘culture’ page, and for a split second the past two years of his life don’t exist._ _

___Havoc At Wedding_ the article reads, and accompanying the headline is a picture. His hair has grown, the soft halo of curls that had once been Louis’ constant joy now hang long and shiny and chest-length. His face has changed too, lost its fullness and developed corners, shadows, edges. But his eyes remain the same. _ _

__Louis forces himself to breathe and begins to read._ _

___Those in attendance at the Huddersfield wedding this past weekend are no doubt feeling less inclined to indulge in Zinfandel. What started out as a joyous affair for the son of prominent politician Senator Lorn Huddersfield and his new wife quickly turned to turmoil as guests found themselves sprayed, showered, and soaked in red wine. Though there are conflicting reports of what exactly happened, most agree that the incident began when Huddersfield senior gave a toast to his son. By the end of the senator’s heartfelt speech, six crocs of water at the refreshment table had been re-filled with wine and begun to spout and explode onto the reception’s guests. Blame was quickly placed on known peace protester Harry Styles, who was at the reception with his mother. Before he was escorted from the event, Styles could be heard calmly stating that “More blood than this has spilled from the innocent in Vietnam.” While authorities could find no proof Styles caused the carnage, the anti-war protester (his family long a fixture of Galeglen life, known for their woodworking shop on 5th and Main) has been issued a stern warning._ _ _

__A pain attacks Louis’ stomach, so he places a hand there. This doesn’t suffice, however, and moments later he feels himself slide from the chair to find haven on the linoleum floor. Prostration alone makes his heart slow these days, so he presses down as flat as he can, and in the imaginary safety of discolored tiles he lets himself remember._ _

__He last saw his best friend over two years ago. The night will be forever etched into his memory; he can still smell the stench of blooming peonies in humid air, see the garden square ringed in party lights, trace the way leaf-shaped shadows cut across the dimples on Harry’s cheeks. There, in that garden, everything fell apart._ _

__They were always inseparable, as neighbors, as classmates, as best friends. Only Louis watched Harry rescue butterflies from spider webs and hold funerals for sparrows. Only Louis observed the green-eyed boy gently braid his hair and sat with him as he drew massive sidewalk chalk murals. Even when they both grew up Harry never _changed_ , was never molded by peer pressure or self-consciousness or societal norms. Harry remained unbothered by the odd stares of others, by the nicknames that people anointed him with. Of course Louis valiantly strove to protect him from these cruelties—defending, reassuring, indulging—but Harry always seemed oblivious to their existence. And by their late teens Louis had developed a rather large blind spot in regards to his best friend due to… well, due to being in unrequited love with him. _ _

__Harry possessed a kind of brilliance that drew Louis like a moth to a lamp. He didn’t fully understand the feelings in his chest until he found himself glumly staring at Harry’s lips or attempting to hold his hand long after they’d grown out of the need to do so when crossing streets. If Harry guessed his feelings, he never said. And really it didn’t hurt too much, being in unrequited love with his best friend, for Harry never seemed interested in girls or dating, and only ever spoke romantically about the dreams he would write down in dog-eared notebooks. Far too easily Louis fell into an imaginary world where Harry loved him back._ _

__Which is why when he told Harry of his enlistment, he expected his best friend to be _proud_ , to understand that this was a _brave thing_ , a dutiful thing, an honorable sacrifice to make with one’s life. He expected Harry to hug him close and whisper how he would be waiting when Louis returned, but instead Harry backed away, blinked at him once, and murmured “How could you,” as if Louis had personally burned a hole through his core. In that softly lit garden on the darkest night of Louis’ life, Harry simply turned and walked away. _ _

__Louis pushes up from the floor, feeling only slightly better. In a moment of bitter desperation he grabs the newspaper from the edge of the table. Pinup girls never did it for him, even when he imagined away the space between their legs, and after two years, Harry’s blurry newspaper snapshot is more temptation than Louis can stand. He’s taken in by the curve of Harry’s mouth, the smooth edges of his jaw, and finds himself tracing a finger over the new crease between his eyebrows. As he stares his blood begins to beat lower; arousal is a stranger to him these days, and he can barely believe his body is responding. He fumbles with the zipper of his jeans, finally getting a hand around himself and slumping against the back of the kitchen counter as he begins, not caring if he’s too dry, if it hurts; the more raking the stimulus, the more it deadens his other unwanted pains._ _

__Harry’s black and white face makes no judgement when Louis’ hips begin to thrust and his breathing picks up. Soft whimpers fall from his open mouth when finally his leaking tip provides enough lubrication for his fist to accelerate. Louis reaches the end far too soon, and he nearly cries at the sweetness of climax, at a sensation occurring inside his broken body that feels good, _pleasurable_. As his cock blurts he holds Harry’s picture underneath, deriving shameful satisfaction from watching his cum drizzle over the boy who broke his heart. _ _

__“Fuck.”_ _

__The doorbell rings, because of course it does. Louis heaves himself up and falls into his breakfast chair, pressing his head down between his knees, panting. The doorbell rings again, but still he doesn’t move._ _

__When it rings a third time he begrudgingly folds the ruined paper in half and tosses it into the trash as he tucks himself back in. He shuffles towards the door, his legs too wobbly still for proper movement._ _

__“Yeah?” He snaps, swinging open the screen._ _

__A blonde man wearing bell bottoms and a tight white t-shirt gives him a once over. “You’re, uh,” the man motions to Louis’ crotch._ _

__More irritated than embarrassed, Louis zips up. “What’d you want?”_ _

__“Is Zayn around?”_ _

__“You think I’d be standing here if he were?”_ _

__“Woah, man, just an innocent question. You his roommate, then?”_ _

__“Yep.” Louis makes to close the door._ _

__“Wait wait, can you give him this?”_ _

__The man holds out a manila envelope, carefully taped shut and slightly bulging._ _

__“Do I look like a mailman to you?” But Louis takes it, hoping no traces of his previous activity are visible on his hands._ _

__“Actually, it’s _for_ you, so if you wanna open it, feel free.” _ _

__“ _For_ me? I don’t know you.”_ _

__“I mean, no, but Zayn’s been on about you for weeks. He asked to see some testimonials so,” the man taps the envelope now in Louis’ hands, “Here they are!”_ _

__“Testimonials?” Louis eyes the parcel like it could bite him._ _

__“You know, from us obviously, and then tons from other people too. I’m not the best at keeping track but Tay has a whole list. We’re into the hundreds at this point.”_ _

__“Cool.” Louis blinks, lost and not caring enough to engage further._ _

__“Anyway so, uh, I’m Niall, and I hope you’ll come. We’d love to see you there.”_ _

__“Uh huh.”_ _

__Louis closes the door, deposites the ‘testimonials’ on the table, and doesn’t give the incident another thought._ _

*

Zayn finds him that evening passed out on the couch, an empty beer can in his hand, two more on the coffee table, and proceeds to jostle him awake. Louis resents this, as the alcohol has finally taken him past the point of exhaustion with no residual dreams.

“Fuck off,” he swats at his friend, his words slurred.

“Get up, Lou, you’re coming with me.” Zayn tries to heave him and fails. “Bastard. Come on, Lou, make an effort.” Zayn grabs the can from his fingers and crushes it underfoot. The pop of aluminium jolts through Louis’ senses and he startles. 

“Get _up_ damnit Louis, I’m not letting this war kill you too. Get the _fuck up._ ”

This time Louis lets the thin man help sit him upright. His head spins. He notes a crocheted afgan pooling around his hips; someone covered him as he slept. 

“Here, drink.” 

Zayn shoves a water glass under his nose.

“Did you eat anything today? Nevermind, we don’t have time anyway. Drink up, and we’ve gotta go.” 

“Go?” Louis never goes anywhere with Zayn. 

“Gonna take you to a friend of a friend. It’s my last ditch attempt to try and help you. Never thought in a million years Niall would get me to one of these things, but here we are. The things I do for you, Lou.”

“You fucking taking me to AA?” 

“Not a bad idea, but no. Worse. An energy healer.” Zayn lets a wry smile overtake his face. “He’s got quite a following.”

“Energy...healer.” Louis rubs at his temples.

“Batshit-crazy if you ask me, but it seems he’s helped a lot of vets. Can’t say I go in for the crystal stuff, but, whatever. Anyway you’re coming, let’s go.”

Louis protests standing, but Zayn persists. A change of shirt (Zayn makes him) and a granola bar in hand later, Louis finds himself lolling his head out the passenger window of a Chevy Impala as Zayn drives them through Galeglen’s small downtown. Dusk hasn’t quite descended yet, and shoppers still meander in and out of store fronts. Zayn passes the small upholstery shop at the end of the city block and pulls onto a weedy patch of earth that used to serve as the town’s defacto parking lot for little league games. Louis has never seen it this full. Cars crowd the space, stretching almost to the woodland boundary, their rows resembling jenga tiles instead of orderly straight lines. Zayn weaves through the mess until he finds a suitable space near the forest. 

“Bringing the sick dog to the woods?” Louis snarks, his buzz finally wearing off. 

“Don’t tempt me.” Zayn closes the Impala’s door a little too loudly and points towards a large crowd assembled in the old baseball field. 

“This is one of those hippie chant cults, isn’t it.” Louis pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and quickly lights it before his hands can start shaking. 

“No idea, honestly.” 

As they get nearer, Louis observes that the crowd is clustered around the old diamond that still persists in all its off-white glory despite ample overgrown weeds. From the packed bleachers a blonde man approaches them, and he looks familiar. 

“You actually got him here, I’m impressed.” 

“His bark is worse than his bite.” Zayn slaps Louis’ good shoulder and pushes him forward.  
“This is Niall.” 

“Louis,” Louis says, instinctively checking that his fly is closed.

Niall smiles, grabbing Louis’ hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “Come on, he’s about to start. It’s pretty full tonight, but fortunately I know a guy.” Niall winks at Zayn and they share a chuckle. 

“I’m not staying if there’s singing,” Louis mumbles, his unease building as he enters the convergence of bodies. 

“No singing here, man. At least not ‘til afterwards!” 

Niall proves talented at leading them through the tightly packed people, and soon Louis is climbing up the bleachers towards the second to last row, his footfalls a tinny echo beneath him. A slender brunette girl sits up from where she’s been stretched out along a row, obviously saving the space, and smiles at Niall. 

“El, this is Zayn and Louis. Guys, meet Eleanor, our fearless sometimes-bodyguard.” 

Louis feels his eyebrows lift before he can stop them, but Eleanor graciously pretends not to notice and taps the aluminium seat beside her. 

The din of chattering people fades to a hum as Louis descends into his sensory cocoon, a survival instinct honed amidst bombs and bullets but still essential for his survival at home. Using his curiosity as a distraction, he peers down at the diamond, but from his vantage point can’t make out who is standing in the epicenter. Instead he turns his attention to the attendees around him, a mix of young people mostly his own age, mostly dressed like the kids who filled his ears with obscenities as soon as he touched foot to American soil. 

The crowd take their seats at an invisible cue, and Louis’ skin prickles uncomfortably, his ears filling with sudden static at the lack of noise. In the emptiness of vacuum Louis’ only anchor becomes the figure in white that emerges to stand atop the warped, plastic dome of the baseball diamond. 

_Harry._

Louis’ chest caves with suction, and he can’t break the seal to gulp in air because Harry is there, below him, exactly the same yet entirely different, a young man with an angular face wearing strange clothes—a white dress-like thing draped around his body—and crystal necklaces that hang low on his exposed chest and refract the waning sun. It’s almost too much for Louis to notice the crown of wildflowers messily melting down to mingle in Harry’s long curls, or the rough looking leather sandals that come between his feet and the ground. 

“My friends,” Harry begins, and his voice has changed, has lowered and mellowed and smoothed, like thick molasses, like syrup drawn from a summer tree. “The sickness of this world weighs heavily on all creation. It works _always_ to dim God’s light within us. If your light is dimmed today, if you are in pain, if you feel hopeless, or purposeless, you are not alone. Believe me when I say that you will be _blessed_ for counting yourselves among the peacemakers. Even if you are ridiculed for it, you will be _blessed_ for believing in the power of God’s love, for your belief in a brighter future, in a world where evil is vanquished. You will be _blessed_ for showing love to those who call you foolish, those who refuse to see the light of God within others and within themselves.” 

The crowd hangs on Harry’s every word and Louis’ heart drops somewhere between his ankles. 

“You, every single one of you, my friends, my brothers and sisters, have a _purpose_. You are here to spread your light in this world, to season life with beauty, to combat the rancid hatred of others with God’s love.” 

The hair on Louis’ arms stands on end, and he finally inhales, an involuntary reflex, not a choice. 

“We can build a world where there is peace, where love reigns, where these cruel wars are nothing but a distant memory. God does not discriminate in his mercies. He sends His rain on both those who kill and those who seek peace, and the sun rises above Vietnam just as it does here, and we cannot stop that. But He has given us the ability to change this world through Him, through the light of His love.”

As Harry says these words he happens to glance up, and like metal to magnet he meets Louis’ eyes. An eternity passes between them in a single second.

“Let me tell you a story,” Harry continues, finally breaking his gaze, presumably unaware that Louis’ blood has frozen inside him. “Once there was a sparrow, a young sparrow, who above all else wished to be a mighty hawk. He left his forest home and went to the mountains and asked the hawks to make him one of them, and they promised to do so in exchange for his help. Many other young sparrows heard of this and likewise asked to become hawks, and soon the hawks were feasting on hoards of mice that the sparrows chased from the forest into the great meadow between the mountains. When the forest had been emptied of mice, and the hawks had grown fat and greedy, the hawks began to eat the sparrows. In this way they _did_ become their masters.”

Louis can’t swallow. He drops his head, wondering when it had become so terribly heavy on his neck. He doesn’t have to look up to know Harry’s eyes are on him again. 

“Anyone here who is hurting today, come and be healed by God’s light.” 

Niall reaches over and pats his thigh. “Come on, Louis, I’ll get you near the front.” 

The crowd has already rousted and begun to form makeshift lines, but Louis stays seated, unsure how to make his mouth form words. All he can manage is a shake of his head. 

“No need to be nervous, man, it doesn't like, hurt or anything. He just touches you.” 

Louis stands, something in the way his muscles tense alerting Zayn that all is not well.

“Louis?”

With another headshake Louis pushes past the brunette girl and down the bleachers and onto the grass, not stopping his scrambled retreat until he reaches the sidewalk of Main Street. He glances back then, watching as the overhead lights of the baseball field flicker on. The sun has set. With a horrid clenching in his gut, Louis forces his body to run. 

*

“Lou? Louis? Wake up, man, come on, don’t… shit…” 

Louis finally recognizes the banging in his head as someone gently slapping his cheeks. Slowly he opens one eye, then the other, surprised to find the carpet staring at him from an inch away. 

“You’re a mess,” Zayn whispers, propping him up against the couch he’d clearly toppled from. 

“Yeah?” Louis slurs, smelling his own breath as he does so and wrinkling his nose at the discovery. 

“I’m trying to _help_ you.” 

Louis fixes his roommate with an unsteady gaze. “I know.” He blinks several times, trying to put Zayn’s glowering face into focus. “Sorry.” 

“If you were sorry, you’d let me help you. And here when I _try_ , when I take you to this dude I think is two windmills short of a breeze factory, you fucking run away on me.” 

“I—” Louis tries to push Zayn away, “I don’t want Harry.” 

After a moment’s pause Zayn takes his chin and tilts it towards him. “How’d you know his name? Have you been crying?” 

Louis yanks free, trying and failing to push up from the floor. 

“Have you met him before?” 

Stilling in defeat, Louis finally nods. “Yeah. He was my best friend. Once.” 

With a soft thump Zayn sits beside him. “You’ve never mentioned him, Lou.” 

“Nothing to mention.” 

After a moment, Zayn murmurs, “Okay,” and drapes his arm across Louis’ shoulders, saying nothing more.


	2. Baptism

Louis figures he must have fallen asleep in his roommate’s embrace, for he wakes the next afternoon on the couch, covered in two of Zayn’s mom’s afghans. He rubs at his tender shoulder and groggily recalls what had led to his latest collapse. He has a splitting headache, not made better by the previous day’s memories or the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed. 

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world… Louis tries not to let his mind fixate on the one thing he desperately wants to fixate on as he eats. Not even the edited paper Zayn left can interest him, so he balls it up and throws it towards the trash, missing miserably. 

He can feel a good sulk coming on, the kind that feels good for the first hour or so, comforting even, but eventually turns sour and cold when you realize no one else is going to share in your pity party, and that the old adage ‘misery loves company’ is all too true. He can’t have a good sulk with Zayn’s family pictures staring at him from the wall, though, reminding him of love and companionship and his past life. Leaving his half-empty bowl on the table, and without so much as a look towards the shower, Louis stalks out the door. 

Sunlight floods his sensitive eyes, but he blusters on, down the drowsy street and towards his old neighborhood across town. The journey becomes subconscious, more inevitable in its destination with each step, even as Louis denies that reality. He acts surprised at himself when the broken fence behind the old drive-in theater faces him, refusing to admit the reason he’s willing to trample down a path through overgrown weeds. When he reaches the creek bank, he can’t repress his motives any longer. 

The place still reeks of Harry, imprinted with a distillation of him somehow, and though it smarts like peroxide to a wound, Louis folds himself into the tall grass and lets the antiseptic of memory burn him.

It all comes back to him mind: hot summer days making racing boats out of tree-pods and splashing naked in the water, and he can see Harry, covered head to toe in mud after saving a toad from a little hillock he thought was a mighty waterfall… He can remember swimming across the creek’s deepest currents, pretending that sharks lurked beneath, making excuses to pull Harry close just so he could feel their bare arms touch together, slick with wetness, and relish in the fine marbling of goosebumps that coated their skin. 

Eddies swirl around two protruding logs as Louis clutches his knees to his chest, unbothered by the damp marshiness beneath him. He hardly trusts peace anymore, and though he half believes the scene of blue sky and birdsong will be broken at any moment by a burst of flame, he nonetheless drifts to sleep. 

With a slight chill, Louis wakes, the full warmth of the sun having left him. Stiffness pulls through his spine, and he realizes he’s slept the day away. With a long inhale he blinks his heavy eyelids. 

Someone is bathing in the creek. 

From his position tucked up in the rushes Louis can easily see the figure splashing about. Clearly they haven’t seen _him_ , and are going about their routine with unabashed vigor. As the sleep clears from his eyes Louis makes out the silhouette of a man against the dipping sun, his chest broad and his hair a long, sleek dangle down his shoulders. 

The bather begins to hum to himself, and Louis half wonders if the nymphs of myth are real until the man leans back and begins to float, stretching his arms in a T and sending a shimmer of snake-like ripples towards the bank. 

Louis knows it’s Harry then, for long ago he’d begged to learn the secrets of floating. He’d been scrawny and lanky and hardly possessed enough surface area to warrant buoyancy, but Louis had persisted, holding him up under his arms and pulling him backwards, giving out soft instructions to relax, to stop kicking, to trust the water underneath. Of course he secretly didn’t want Harry to get the knack of it, because that meant he would have to let go. 

Louis blinks away moisture as Harry dips under the surface, then rises, glistening, to stand amidst the current. The setting sun breaks through a gap in the trees and snags on Harry’s outline, the light focalizing with a convergence that illuminates him in a fringe of gold, diffusing around his dripping hair like a halo. 

Before Louis can recover from swallowing air, a shadow skims above his head and over the water. A bird—white, dove-like—flutters down towards Harry and lands gently on his shoulder, perching there as a sudden wind turns the tall grasses of the bank into miniature malstrones. Something about the wind sounds like words, deep and breathy, vibrating with a frequency not meant for human ears. 

_Harry’s God,_ Louis thinks at once, and this snap realization trickles through his blood like a slow poison, corroding him with jealousy from the inside out. He knows at once that he needs to leave, has to get away from this new Harry, this boy who has been claimed by something, some _one_ , else. He stumbles upright and tries to run, but the moment he moves the wind ceases and his efforts are loud and exposed. 

“Louis?” 

He freezes, his muscles straining.

“It _was_ you.” 

Slowly Louis turns, and no sooner does Harry glimpse his face than he’s bounding from the water, tromping up waves in his hurry. He bursts onto the bank and throws himself against Louis, his naked body dripping everywhere, his arms like vices around the other boy’s smaller form. 

“Lou,” Harry whispers, his voice gasping, “It really is you. You really _are_ home.” 

Louis’ arms hang limply at his sides. He simply doesn't know how to lift them anymore, and doesn’t trust that even if he can, they won’t respond with anger instead of affection. Finally Harry notices this and pulls away, his forehead creased in confusion as if he’s forgotten the terms of their last encounter. 

“You’ve got me all wet,” Louis mumbles, brushing at his drenched shirt and jeans. 

“Smells like you could use it.” Harry wrinkles his nose at the tease and takes Louis’ hand to pull him towards the water. “Come on, like old times.” 

For half a moment Louis is prepared to protest, but Harry is touching him, their palms flush, and he needs the contact like a drug now, though he’s just remembered its potency. 

“Okay,” he says, making no move to follow through. They watch each other for a time, until Harry’s enthusiastic smile leaves his face, replaced by uncomfortable knowledge.

“Here, let me help you, Lou,” he blurts at last, seeming to shake off the horrors of observation. Louis lets him peel the shirt from his torso and undo his jeans, deriving just a little satisfaction from Harry’s obvious guilt upon seeing each new scar. 

Naked at last, Louis takes in a deep breath, a challenge. 

Harry touches the mangled mark of an exploded bullet beneath his left shoulder, fingertips in place of words. Tenderly he traces the outline of pink skin, pallor coming to his face. 

“It’s so close to your heart…” 

Unable to look anymore at the proximity between their bare bodies, Louis closes his eyes. They have both seen each other before, of course, multiple times. Countless times. But in Louis’ mind the clay and blood are caked to him still, and he half doubts that Harry can’t see it coating his skin, dried and tacky and smelling of rot and death, and now more than ever he wishes to be untainted, to have this boy see him how he used to be, undamaged and whole. 

“Come on, Lou, it’ll feel good, I promise.” Harry takes his hand once more and pulls him to the water’s edge.

“This is freezing.” Louis draws his toes back from the bank with a shudder. 

“Gets warmer when you’re all in,” Harry smiles, and his dimples appear, and Louis remembers why he would try so hard to make his best friend laugh. 

“Liar.” Louis’ teeth begin to chatter as he follows Harry into the ice cold depths. 

“ _All in_ , Lou. Here, want me to?” 

Louis finds himself nodding without comprehending the question, and moments later strong arms brace against his back and chest and dunk him backwards into the creek. 

Before the tendrils of his fear can claim him, Harry raises him up, breaking him free from the water, birthing him into the open air with droplets of another world still clinging to his eyelashes. When he regains his feet, he blinks through the haze of wet and stares at Harry, half shocked, half immobilized with the realization that he’s in Harry’s arms. He can feel his chest heaving. 

“You dunk all the returning sparrows? Try to wash away their past before you heal them with your hippie powers?” 

Harry’s smile fades. “I tried to find you the next morning, you know, after that night in the garden. But you’d already left.” 

“Letters exist, don’t they? My mom sent a video for Christmas. Two years, nothing, not a _damn_ thing from you, not a—” Louis bites his lip, but it still wobbles.

“Lou, you don’t understand, I thought of you every moment, but I needed to tell you in person and I—”

“You know what? I don’t wanna hear it.” Louis dredges his legs through the water as he strides towards shore, sure that nothing can turn him back. 

“Louis _PLEASEyou_.” 

A hazy peach twilight hangs about them, and fireflies begin to dart in and out of the grass, their flickerings not random enough to grant Louis assurance. He stops walking but doesn’t turn, and soon a warm hand slides into his own. 

“It ate me up, your leaving. I cried for days.”

“Sure, I bet y—”

Harry sharply tugs him from the water until they’re both standing on the bank. “I ran away. From school, from my mom. Forty days and nights I spent in the woods, half lost, half crazed. You’d left me, Lou. I didn’t know how to live without you.” 

Louis tries to meet his former best friend’s eyes and fails, making it only up to Harry’s lips before courage deserts him. 

“There was nothing I could do to keep you safe, so I started to pray. I thought, maybe God _is_ real, maybe if I beg enough… and that’s when it began, Lou, when the animals started bringing me nuts and berries and I began to hear this voice around me. The more I listened, the more I could understand it, and soon I realized it was God, talking to me. I asked Him to save you, but He couldn’t promise to do that unless—unless I promised to save others in return. And when I came back, I could _do things_ , I could help people, I could finally be useful, don’t you see? Now I can stop people’s pain, I can end their suffering, I can _heal_.” 

Pride bolsters Louis’ defenses against the ring of truth in Harry’s tone. Roughly he pulls his hand away and sets about slipping on his clothes. 

“Neat,” he snaps as he pulls his boxers up, his bottom towards Harry. 

“You don’t believe me.” 

Louis yanks his jeans on next and buttons them, shrugging. 

“Lou stop, please. Look at me.” 

Complying with a sigh, Louis turns. “I’m looking.” He gives Harry a once over as if he hasn’t already marked all the changes to his body. “You’re nineteen, you’re a man now, yeah? Finally grew into all your limbs. Got taller on me, too, didn’t you? You promised you’d never do that.” 

“I—I didn’t have much choice, Lou, it just sort of happened—”

“No _choice_? Why didn’t you just ask God to make you shorter? Heal yourself shorter, Harry, I’m sure it’ll work. After all God _saved_ me, didn’t he? What a great gift that is, and I have you to thank! Thank you, Harry, for two life-filled years surviving hell just so I could come home and realize _I’ll never get out_.” 

Harry’s breath catches and he stares with glistening eyes. “You wish you’d died?” 

“I wish I was dead. It’s different.” 

Harry makes no response, just stands rooted in place, dripping into the mud. Feeling the pressure of such a low blow, Louis searches for an out and finds it in the pile of cloth near Harry’s feet. He picks the white fabric up and attempts to find an opening. 

“What is this thing anyways, too many holes, can’t you just wear a fucking shirt.” Harry’s expression grows only more grave. “Come on, one foot at a time, can’t be accused of making the famed peace crusader catch a cold, that is if you can even _catch_ colds now…” 

“Let me heal you, Lou.” 

Louis halts in place. “Harry.” 

“I can take away the things that haunt you, I’ve done it for many other veterans. They say the nightmares end and the panic stops.” Harry takes his garments from Louis and slips them on. “Please. Please let me. It’s the least I can do.” Gently he places his hand back inside Louis’, twining their fingers. 

A brisk laugh escapes Louis’ lips, and he’s not sure why this offer feels like everything he’s never known he wanted. “Sure, why not. Gonna use your magic crystals or something?” 

Harry smiles and shakes his head. “They’re not magic, they just keep me from tiring. I only need to touch you.” 

“You are touching me.” 

“Like this.” Harry lays his fingers along Louis’ hairline and presses upwards until his palm is flat. A strange tingly feeling runs through Louis’ body, but it stops short of his chest, then retreats altogether, leaving him cold and empty and hollower than before, or perhaps only making him cognisant that those feelings were there at all. He looks to Harry. 

“Am I supposed to be all better now.” 

“It’s… it’s not working.” 

“ _No_ ,” Louis says with mock horror, removing Harry’s hand and examining it as if diagnosing a broken utensil. 

“It always works. Always. I don’t understand.” 

“I do.” Louis shakes his head, actually a little disappointed but mostly prepared to gloat. “Psychosomatic, big word I know, means it’s a trick of your head. They _want_ to believe that you heal them, that’s all.” 

“No, Louis I’m not lying to you, I’ve changed water to wine, I’ve—”

“That wasn’t just sabotage?” 

“Let me show you, please,” 

“I’ve seen enough.” Louis turns and begins to hike up the little slope. He’s not gone five paces before Harry is following him, but he doesn’t stop. 

When he’s walked halfway through the theater lot, Louis spins around, loose gravel kicking up dust that sticks to his damp ankles. Harry halts, caught in his pursuit, inches away. 

“I missed you,” Harry blurts out, his eyes wide, “So much.”

The words Louis has waited two years to hear now seem like a mirage, intangible though they ring in his ears. 

“Have you cut me out entirely? Is there nothing I can say? Nothing I can do, nothing I can prove?” 

Everything inside of Louis wants to hurt this boy, this _man_ , to lash him hard, to make him understand the enormity of his betrayal, to comprehend the trauma and bitter aftertaste of war, to feel the magnitude of hurt his abandonment caused. But when Louis opens his mouth to speak, he can’t do it. Instead he voices what little courage remains in his veins. 

“It’s no use, Harry. Everything’s changed now, we’re part of two different worlds. I don’t belong with you, you don’t belong with me.” 

Harry’s eyes grow huge. “You can’t really believe that.” 

“I can, and I do. I’m a Marine. I did what had to be done, I _went,_ I answered my country’s call, and now I’m just a killer to you, aren’t I? That’s what that little sermon was about, wasn’t it? Why are you following me, Harry. Why do you want me to accept your peace shit, to pretend like your whole group of followers wouldn’t spit on me the first chance they get?” 

Louis thinks this will end it. He makes to leave, but Harry blocks his way. Without a word the taller boy slides his hand inside Louis’ once more, hunches his shoulders slightly to assume Louis’ height, then begins to tug him towards home. 

They walk in silence for a long while, Louis unwilling to break away even though his chest begins to burn. The street lights shine a dim yellow, barely bright enough to illuminate the discolored patches of gum darkening the sidewalk. Galeglen’s tiny downtown has long since been abandoned for the comforts of dinner and home, and even its flashing neon signs sit like skeletons in the store windows. 

“We used to do this all the time,” Harry muses. “It’s like nothing’s changed.” 

Words don’t come easily with Harry’s skin against his, so Louis tries to tug his hand away, but Harry won’t let him, instead linking their fingers, a soft inhale accompanying the motion. 

“I’ll find a way,” Harry whispers, voice soft and low. “I’ll find a way to fix you.” 

Louis succeeds at freeing himself and glares down at the asphalt, at the shadow of his shoe there. “Don’t bother. You’ve got an image to preserve now.” He adds bitterly, “You’ve always stood on the high ground. After all, you sent your best friend off to war with a broken—” Louis barely catches himself in time, “—Spirit.”

Harry bites his lip, his long curls curtaining in on his face as he hangs his head. “I was a boy then. Please don’t… don’t hold that against me forever.” 

Pain tinges this request, pain and yearning, and Louis feels his bones respond, as if in sympathetic vibration. 

“You’re mostly a boy still.” Louis shoves his hands in his pockets, flailing for an anchor as he lets a memory slip through. “Did you know that eyes, they’re not glued in, did you know that? They come out, just _pop_ , like a pack of pills, one blast and you’ve got loose eyeballs.”

Harry’s new frown line deepens. 

“You stay a boy, Harry, long as you can. If this shit gives you a purpose, fine. But don’t go thinking that _I’m_ home. I’m someone else now.” 

Louis knows what he’s doing, knows he’s daring Harry to leave, to run, to turn his back like he did before. 

Harry doesn’t bite. “Louis. I promise you, I’ll be with you always. I’ll be with you ‘til the end of the world.” 

The darkness around them crackles with energy at Harry’s voice, at the gravitas it carries, and for a moment Louis wonders if he’s been witness to a spell. 

“I should get home,” he finally replies, breaking the charged silence. “You should too. I wouldn’t want to get between you and God.” 

Harry hesitates only slightly before rushing out, “Will you come see me tomorrow? I’m just working at the shop all day. You could stop by anytime. If you wanted.” 

_Let me fix you_. Louis wonders how his former best friend would dare to try, but he has no intention of ever giving him the chance. 

“I will,” he lies. 

As he walks alone down the ghostly streets, a persistent wind begins to blow.


	3. And I Will Give You Rest

_A man is blubbering in your arms. You can’t tell who because his face is in ribbons, but you guess it’s Calvin. The ricochets of the blast keep echoing in your ears, and you cling to this sound because at least it numbs the reality of your surroundings._

_Your fingers meet blood as you pull Calvin closer, but holding him is the least you can do. Your shoulder stings, so you chance a glance down to find you’ve been shot as well, a crimson cherry marking where a bullet has lodged inside you._

_Back and forth you rock, whispering over and over in the man’s ear, “S’okay, you’re okay, I’ve got you, it’s alright,” but you close your eyes because your stomach would betray you. In your head you pray to powers you don’t believe in, hoping something, someone, somewhere, can help you keep up this lie long enough, that Calvin’s last memory will be your soft words and not the screams tunneling up your throat._

_Your brain searches out a balm, because gods are dead and you have to answer your own prayers. You remember the last time a crying boy sought comfort in your arms, and you cling to that image, his mess of curls spiky with salty tears, his cheeks mottled and dewy, his lower lip bitten raw. He’d cried like the world was ending, even though it wasn’t, even though he’d only lost a forest, a patch of scraggly woods fit for nothing more than shortcuts and hunting scrap metal. Your present self wants to slap the memory, to go back and shake the boy until he quiets, to scream in his face HOW DARE YOU CRY OVER A PARKING LOT. Didn’t he understand? Tears were commodities, rationed for the final defeat._

_Even when Calvin stops crying you keep holding him. Suddenly you don’t want to move away from death; you feel safest in its company now, here, holding its latest claim, having perhaps slipped behind its back, out of sight, out of reach, even just for a moment._

_Finally voices begin to call, and you open your eyes. You can hear the beating whir of a chopper above. Blood and mud have mixed together around you—not unlike raspberry syrup poorly stirred into dark chocolate, the kind you used to drizzle over ice cream Sundays as a kid—and the mechanical wind ripples it against your soaking uniform, against Calvin’s immobil fingers._

_Hands are on you, American hands. They take Calvin, lay him in his final clothes—black with one zipper, waterproof—and you wonder if he’ll find the outfit terribly uncomfortable. You’re on your back, staring up at a sky blue as forget-me-nots. You can feel the darkness coming, sifting from the back of your mind to your eyes, and you’ve been saving one last memory for this moment, because how can it hurt you now, at the end?_

_A hand in yours, larger, wider, clasping tightly, pulling you on some quest, some crusade, plump cheeks and dimples deep as craters and two front teeth that sit a bit longer than the others as they crease strawberry lips. Eyes of mossy green, flecks of gold visible in the bright sun. Hair a wind-blow nest, skin at once soft and shiny with the late glow of waning adolescence._

_You can feel him as the darkness claims your eyes first, you can feel his warm touch, the only skin that’s ever sparked against your own. You greedily let every shredded remembrance dance across your mind, destroying their carefully wrought cages, the locks of which were only ever bracken._

_Before the end of thought you dare to do it, the forbidden word, painful and sour but the only truth you really want to say now, now that nothing else matters._

_Harry? Harry, I love you._

“Louis…”

A light flickers on, and Louis jolts at this more than the gentle hands on his shoulders. 

“Hey. It’s okay.” 

Zayn’s face looks more worried than his voice betrays. Struggling against the bedsheets that have once again swaddled him, Louis props himself up on his elbows and reorients to his surroundings. 

“You were screaming, Lou.” 

“Don’t I do that every night.” 

“Tonight was… worse.” Zayn sweeps Louis’ sweaty fringe from his forehead. “Even broke through my earplugs.”

Louis sighs, flopping back against his pillow, unsurprised to find it damp. “At least I’m in the record book as the worst roommate you’ve ever had.”

“Oh for sure. No competition there. I think a howler monkey would make less racket. Might as well lease this room to a lawnmower, probably would get more sleep.” 

Louis huffs out a laugh at Zayn’s dead-serious expression. “It would probably pay you more, too.” 

“Well lawnmowers have jobs, not just veterans comp, so, yeah.” 

“And a purpose in life. Cutting lawns, I’ve heard.”

“They do operate well in the colonial world of capitalist wealth display.” 

“Keep talking, I’m close,” Louis mumbles, balling up his damp pillow beneath him and settling in. Zayn tugs up the twisted sheets and covers his shoulders. 

“Haven’t I told you yet about the book I’m writing, ‘Grass as an invasive species, an allegory for white colonialism,’ by me? Seven hundred pages of mourning the native flora and fauna that used to cover this stolen earth, five hundred pages of shitting on dicks who manicure their lawns by pouring poisonous chemicals into our water supply.” 

“That’s a lot of shitting on dicks, Zayn.” 

“Watch your tone or I’ll make it three hundred pages longer and make you read it as penance for my insomnia.” 

Louis smiles, and this crack of emotion ends the playful banter between them, brings them back to the stark reality of why Zayn is sitting in his room at three A.M. 

“I’ll, um… I’m fine, you can go back to bed. Sorry, again.” 

“Lou?” 

Louis meets his roommate’s eyes as a response. 

“If you ever want to find that purpose, you can come with me.” 

A beat of silence passes before Louis answers. “I’m not a student.”

“Well that’s a brilliant excuse.” 

“Okay, how about I don’t enjoy getting spit on?” 

Zayn stands from the bed, his lips tight. “You’re not an idiot. You’re stubborn, but you’re not an idiot. A lot of those boys… they’re never gonna see. They can’t face knowing it meant nothing. But you’re already facing it, every night. Your heart already knows.” 

A coldness pulses through Louis’ veins, and before he can temper his response he snaps, “You don’t know _shit_ , college boy.” 

Louis regrets his words immediately, but Zayn’s look of pity and disappointment only cements the anger in him. His long suffering roommate shakes his head, turns off the lamp, and walks from the room without another word, quietly closing the door behind him.

Before tears or something worse can take hold, Louis reaches under the bed and finds his escape, three bottles that taste like cheap piss, and in the darkness he drinks these until his vision blurs and his senses swim, until the alcohol dips his mind under water where the weight of depth can press down his fears and pin his memories. Eventually, as the sun begins to rise, he once more falls asleep. 

It’s the miserable ache of guilt and loneliness that carries Louis downtown to the little carpentry shop on 5th and Main later that day. The place hasn’t changed a bit, still unassuming and humble, sitting tucked away between the pharmacy and the Radioshack. Louis twists the door knob and pushes in before he can lose his nerve. The familiar smell of wood gratings and stain assaile his nose, but the place looks empty compared to how it had been when he and Harry were kids. 

“Lou?” Harry emerges from behind two wooden horses supporting a flaking door, a huge smile on his face. “You came!” 

Suddenly nervous, Louis picks up a sanded piece of edging, running a finger along the grooves and divots near its top. “You doing this now?” 

“A little. I live here, mostly.” Harry motions to the shop’s back corner, towards a mattress lying on the floor that’s covered with layers of thinly woven blankets. 

“Your mom kick you out or something?” 

“‘Course not. Just wanted my own place to, you know.” 

“Have hippie orgies?” The words are out of Louis’ mouth before he can think better of it. 

“Um,” Harry blushes slightly, but otherwise ignores the insinuation. “You didn’t eat yet today, did you? I’ll split my sandwich. Come on, Lou.” 

Harry rustles around behind the checkout counter before pulling Louis down to the blankets of the little bed with him, food in hand. 

“Here, it’s tuna.” 

“Oh. Thanks.” 

“You’re too thin to be picky.”

“That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.” 

Harry takes a bite and urges Louis to do the same. “Really?” 

“Obviously.” 

Harry scoots closer. When their thighs are nearly touching, he hunches down and lays his head atop Louis’ shoulder, just like he used to. 

“You know how I always used to think the wind was alive?” He doesn’t wait for Louis to confirm. “Well, right after you left, when I ran away? I had been wandering for days, pretty much lost, with no food or anything, and I found this huge boulder in the middle of the forest and decided I’d climb up and sleep on it and hope perhaps I could turn to stone too. But as soon as I reached the top, all of a sudden the wind blew at me from every direction. And that’s when I first _heard_ Him. I convinced myself it was just the leaves rustling, but then this hum began in my left ear and I saw outlines in the sunlight, real moving shapes, and the more I tried to focus on them, the louder the hum became and the stronger the wind blew, and soon I heard a voice like a cymbal saying _my son_...” Harry paused. “I thought it was Robin before I realized.” 

Louis says nothing. He doesn’t know how to respond save to swallow the bite of tuna sandwich now stuck in his throat. 

“So I’ve changed too, Lou, and not just the getting taller bit.” 

Louis studies his former best friend’s wide face, finding it more open than before, yet less readable. His soft baby fat has given way to angles, and sparse, curled hairs now make their way down Harry’s chest. Forgetting himself, or perhaps giving in to a former self, Louis reaches out and begins to draw his fingers through the barely visible growth exposed via Harry’s draping robe. His fingers glide back and forth and sideways, and are soon warm from the heat transference of their skins. 

“This is new,” he whispers. 

“I’ve got a moustache too, see?” Harry purses his upper lip outwards, only serving to highlight how few dusty-gold hairs cover it. 

“You call that a moustache? It’s an insult to the very idea of facial hair,” Louis teases, his hand coming to a stop above Harry’s heart. The steady rhythm of it begins to stutter. 

Sawdust hangs in the shop like a fog, diffusing the midday sunlight into soft pools. Silence is replaced by racing pulses, and when rosey color glazes across Harry’s cheeks like some stain brushed on by a pastry chef, Louis’ resolve crumbles. Slowly he leans forward, foolish and hopeful and lost and desperate and in so much pain. Their lips have almost met when Harry blinks and turns his head away. 

“Lou… I can’t. I’m not used to this.” 

“Not used to what?” 

“Being, um. What we’re doing.” Harry pulls away, his face crimson now. “Being touched.” 

“Please. Don’t you hippies practice ‘free love’ and all that?” 

Harry smiles, but the joy of it stops before reaching his eyes. “I _do_ think it’s beautiful, sharing your body with someone you care about, making each other happy, making yourself happy, even if it’s just for one night.” 

“So what’re you saying is _you_ just don’t partake?” 

Harry hesitates. “If you could hear Him you’d understand. His voice is like every sound in the world distilled into a whisper. It’s so beautiful. I said I’d do anything. I _promised_. I would have given up everything if it meant...” 

Harry meets his eyes, words unnecessary to say what he means. 

“You really think that saved me.” Louis shakes his head, baffled, confused, nursing rejection. “I think you’ve gone insane.” 

In an instant Louis knows he’s hurled poison barbs. The color drains from Harry’s cheeks and his body folds in on itself and he whimpers, “I’m not.” 

In the tender collapse of Harry’s joy Louis’ broken heart fractures again, and he sees the little child he shielded and comforted and loved for so many years, and for the first time since their reunion he feels the entirety of their separation crash in around him. He has missed Harry so much. 

_“C’mere.”_

Louis wraps both his arms around the taller boy, pulling him into the tightest of embraces.  
“I’ve been without you for too long.” 

What does it matter, the insanity of it? Louis is mad too, crazed and tormented and filled with ghosts and sins. Perhaps Harry has imagined impossible wonders because he too can’t bear the reality that no one can stop a war, no one person can change the world. Maybe in this fantasy he’s created, reality has become a kinder place; maybe Louis doesn’t care about truth anymore, not if lies can ease his pain. 

Harry melts against him, appeased, and a calm bliss begins to press through Louis’ skin. Slowly they both fold towards the mattress until they’re laying horizontally, still meshed in each other’s arms. 

“I _will_ find a way, Lou, I’ll find a way to give you rest,” Harry says, but his voice already sounds far away. Beside the steady _thrum thrum thrum_ of Harry’s heart, Louis closes his eyes. 

_You hurry down the hallway towards his room, your bare feet sinking into the plush carpet, leaving tracks. You’d seen it on your walk home, as soon as you’d turned down Tenny Street, the little enclave of forest paradise turned into stumps and naked sky._

_He’s face down on the bed, every inch of his fifteen-year-old self shaking with sobs. You climb up next to him and pull him into your arms and he shifts easily, fingers digging into the fabric of your shirt, eyes clenched shut, face a splotchy, wet mess._

_“Shhhh,” you whisper, “We’ll build forts somewhere else, Harry. It’ll be okay.”_

_His sobs just intensify. Anne pokes her head around the door and gives you a thankful smile, and you nod back, sure, certain. This is your wheelhouse. You’ve always known what to say, what to do, how to tend to your best friend’s too-breakable spirit, his gentle heart._

_“We’ll go exploring for another forest, I promise. An even better one, one that’s not really just an old abandoned junk yard, okay?”_

_Harry is not assuaged. He shakes his curly head against your chest. “All the lilies, Lou, and the Queen Anne’s Lace, and my trees, even the old ones they—they were ancient and good and wise and didn’t do ANYTHING and they killed them all, they—”_

_You squeeze him tightly as grief overcomes his words. “But they can grow again, yeah? We’ll go get some seeds and twirly gigs tomorrow and plant their babies by the creek, alright?”_

_“You don’t understand! It’s—” Harry pushes himself from your embrace and makes a broad motion with his gangly arms, “They weren’t hurting anyone! They were just existing! Didn’t they have the right to keep existing, Lou?”_

_You comb your fingers through your best friend’s curls; soon the soothing motion has the desired effect, seems to help more than your words, and he leans against your ribcage, calm. “It’s the principle of the thing, I understand.” Tears and snot have wet through your shirt, but you don’t mind. You never do._

_“Yeah,” Harry sniffles, his tone betraying something more yet to be said. “And… and I couldn’t save them.”_

_“Save them?” You tilt his quivering chin upwards until you can search the green of his eyes. There’s anger there, a hard defiance you’ve never seen before. “How were you going to save them, Harry?”_

_He breaks your tender hold and burrows once more into your shoulder. “Dunno. Refuse to leave. Stand in the way. But I… I missed my chance, and now they’re gone and nothing can bring them back.”_

_This isn’t just about the loss of overly wild maple trees, you realize. Quickly you glance around your best friend’s room in search of a culprit, something that has compounded this trigger into tragedy. You spot it, half slid under the bed, a newspaper with the day’s date, August 7th, 1964, “CONGRESS BACKS PRESIDENT ON SOUTHEAST ASIA MOVES; KHANH SETS STATE OF SIEGE: RESOLUTION WINS.”_

_You shift Harry in your arms and toe the newspaper fully out from the bedskirt. He sees your action and tenses._

_“Harry?” You ask softly, already knowing the answer in your heart._

_“Robin says this means a draft. Soon.”_

_You smile and shake your head, fighting the urge to kiss his worry lines away. “No one’s gonna draft you, silly, they wouldn’t dare. I won’t let them. Don’t even think about this anymore, it’s ridiculous.”_

_Harry blinks furiously before taking shelter against your body once more. “That’s not...”_

_But he doesn’t finish, instead loops his arms around your middle and squeezes, a vice of a hug, and it’s too much to realize that he’s been crying over YOU, because you’re two years older, because you’re almost eighteen, because he can’t do anything to stop a resolution passed by two houses of Congress._

_You hold him back, unable to think of what to say. Renewed tears spill from his eyes and he presses his open mouth against your neck, gulping the warm aura of your skin in exchange for a touch that almost feels like a kiss. A horrible, desperate clenching settles in your pelvis but you can only lay your head against his, that’s as much as you can manage._

_“You can’t worry about things like that, you can’t. Stuff’s gonna happen we can’t change, that’s the way it is. You’re just one boy, Harry.”_

_“No.” His tone is iron. “I will. I’ll find a way. I’ll give anything.”_

_A sudden chill runs through you, as if the wind has found a way through the walls. “Oh?”_

_“Someday I’m going to change everything.”_

_You bite your tongue. He doesn't want reason._

_Gradually you lean back, taking Harry with you, until you’re both flat on the quilted bedspread, limbs tangled, chests touching. What should one do with such a boy, such a strange being seemingly so unfit for the cruel world? You know what you’d like to do, though; you know you’d like to devote every hour of every day to making him smile, to kissing his large pink mouth, to declaring in every language that you knew when you were ten—you knew even as a little boy—that he was it for you, that there would never be anyone else, anywhere, ever._

_“Take me with you when you change everything, yeah?” You ask, but he’s already asleep._


	4. Magdalene and Miracles

Voices drift in and out of Louis’ dreams until at last they clarify. 

“He’s still asleep?” 

“Yeah. He seemed exhausted.” 

“No doubt. I don’t think he’s had one night without the nightmares since he’s been home. He didn’t cry out even once?” 

“Told you, Zayn, Harry can heal.” 

“At least it’s better than _nothing_ , but there’s some wall around him I can’t get through.”

“Long as he’s safe, I don’t care what you do with him. I could fucking strangle the scrawny bastard, one night _I could have actually slept_ and I spent it worried sick.” 

“I’ll tell you next time, Zayn.” 

“Oh, so there’s gonna be a next time, your wise wonderful Gandelf-ness?” 

“Shut up, Niall.” 

Louis rolls over and opens his eyes. Zayn notices first. 

“Lou, man you slept a day and a half.”

Sure enough, morning sunlight streams through the shop’s front windows. Louis’ body aches and his head hurts and his mouth is trying to host a desert. 

“Come on, we’ll get some food into you. Niall and Harry have to go to their cult meeting.” 

“S’not a cult any more than yours is, Zaynie,” Niall tisks. 

“SDS is a protest movement, _Nialler_ , learn the difference.” 

“Yeah, well so is this.” 

Harry rather pointedly steps between the two men and takes Louis’ hand to help him up. “Sorry I’ve got to run, Lou.”

“Are you seriously comparing some feel-good peace and love shit to _actual_ organized—” 

“Yes, because it’s not just peace and love shit, it’s real, and if you’d get off your social high horse long enough—”

“ _My_ social high horse? Oh excuse me, Niall, let me just step down from this privileged platform I have as a _second generation immigrant and minority_ —”

“I have a splitting headache already, guys, please.” Louis looks imploringly at both of them, and after some loud breathing and rather pointed huffs, they all four head silently out of the shop and into the sunny day. 

Harry and Niall walk towards the town square while Louis and Zayn break off for home. 

“Sorry about disappearing. And for, er, the previous night. I’m a dick.” 

Zayn pulls out two cigarettes, lights one for himself, then offers the other and his light to Louis. “That’s true.”

“Thanks,” Louis says with a snort, referencing both. “How do you know Niall again?” 

“College. Met him at some protests before he fell in with Harry’s thing.” 

“You obviously don’t believe any of it, do you.” Cheerful birdsong from the unruly bushes along the sidewalk provides an ironic backdrop to their conversation. 

“S’not that I wouldn’t _like_ to. But what can that kind of shit achieve, really? A bunch of pacifist lambs marching up to the slaughter house and demanding it close itself down? Makes no sense. Nothing changes that way, it just plays into the hegemony's hand.” 

“Lot’s of big words in there, college boy,” Louis chuckles, blowing out a ring of smoke. 

“Speaking of, I’m gonna be late for my government class if we don’t hurry up.” 

“I’m sure you’d make the professor’s day if you skip. How many times have you caused a yelling match?”  
“Not nearly enough.” 

At home Louis wrangles up some food (okay, he eats three bowls of cereal) and forces himself to imbibe water. A shower wouldn’t go amiss either, Zayn rather pointedly informs him before he leaves, so Louis does that too, scrubbing hard at the perpetual second skin that has plagued him since Vietnam. Finally feeling and looking more human, Louis tackles the disaster of empty bottles under his bed. In the light of day the shame of it feels nearly unbearable, but still he can’t bring himself to get rid of the full bottles, lined up for easy access next to his headboard. 

By mid afternoon he can feel the panic start to coalesce around him, settling like dust atop his brain. His hands begin to shake and he finds himself reaching for his stash. With some new willpower, possibly born of an actual night of sleep, he lights a cig instead and leaves the house, retracing his earlier walk with Zayn until he reaches Galeglen’s small downtown once more. 

To his surprise, and perturbation, the sidewalks seem more crowded than usual. People of various ages are flowing in a certain direction, spilling out into the streets even, chattering excitedly as they walk. More out of curiosity than anything else, Louis follows. Perhaps a fair has come to town, or a traveling market. But as he rounds the corner of the city square, he understands. 

There, standing atop the carved stone fountain, is Harry, his loose clothing catching the breeze and outlining his form against the dozens of people that flank him. Contrary to his comfort, Louis wades into the fray, driven by a need to understand this insanity, to comprehend the incomprehensible. Soon he’s crept close enough to hear Harry’s words. 

“The empires of men are _obsolete_. A new kingdom has come to this world, the Kingdom of Heaven! All we must do is claim it, here, within ourselves, we must only embrace the peace that is given us through God! You think I speak of impossibilities, but if we can _dream_ a better world, why can’t we make it so? Are not all our dreams birthed from shreds of reality?” 

The crowd doesn’t cheer at this, but remains hushed, as if contemplating a thought that has never before crossed their minds. Then from the silence a new voice speaks out. 

“Who’s got a right to this new kingdom, then? Who benefits from this, same shits as always?”

A murmur of agreement spreads like cascading pebbles. 

“Friend,” Harry smiles, opening his arms, “Anyone. Everyone. You all are more blood to me than my own mother. We are all one through the love of God, and no sex or race or creed can parce us out.” 

The crowd begins to clap at this, the sound of so many hands hitting together sending tremors into the asphalt. Louis swallows. 

“Teacher!” A woman calls out from the crowd, breaking into the clapping and silencing it. “Please, heal my mother!” 

Louis strains to see on his tip-toes as Harry steps down from the fountain and the crowd parts to let him through. A middle aged woman emerges before him pushing a wheelchair in which sits a huddled form, bent and twisted with age, wrapped in blankets, head hung towards the earth. 

Unable to swallow the new clutch of bile in his throat, Louis nearly turns and leaves; he can’t watch such a cruel display, he can’t stand by as desperate people pin their hopes on foolishness and false promises. Harry’s delusion is greater than he’s thought, and he frantically wants to punch the _healer_ , to pin him to the ground and slap away this strange possession that has turned Harry’s voice into a vehicle of lies. But the crowd has pressed in too tightly for him to escape, so with a sinking gut Louis turns to look on as Harry kneels before the old woman and takes her knobby hand. 

Something about Harry’s expression brings Louis back from his anger. There, perhaps in that new crease between Harry’s eyes, he sees the same compassion as when Harry used to rescue little animals. In his smile Louis recognizes the same tenderness with which Harry had bandaged his many scraped knees. In his stance Louis perceives the same care that had prompted Harry to hold the supermarket door open for shopper after shopper, making himself late to school. 

So lost has Louis grown in his memories that he’s startled by the crowd’s gasp. The old woman has lifted her head. As she meets Harry’s eyes, her back rises too, straightening, and the withered hand that Harry still holds unlocks from the gnarled grasp of arthritis to resume its previous form. Though still aged, the woman now has strength in her bones, and slowly she stands from her chair, planting both her feet steadily and beginning to weep. She falls on Harry then, hugging him fiercely, her skinny arms braced with strength. Her daughter is likewise crying, and the old woman embraces her next, walking away through the crowd linked arm in arm with her child, forgetting the wheelchair behind her. 

Louis blinks, not trusting his eyes. He inches closer, wondering if the distance has distorted his vision.

“Senor, my daughter, please,” says a man holding the hand of a little girl whose hair has been twisted into pigtails. He pushes up through the people to reach Harry’s side. “She cannot hear.” 

Harry crouches down and the little girl approaches, her eyes curious and large. Gently Harry lays his hands over the girl's ears, and moments later the child claps her hands to her mouth and begins to cry. She whirls and runs to her father, who begins to speak to her in Spanish as the girl sobs in his arms. 

Louis doesn’t have time to process his thoughts before a camera flashes inches away from him. Like an avalanche, after the first blink of light, many more follow. Voices began to cry out and instantly the crowd surges forwards, tightening, constricting like a snake around its prey, but Harry seems oblivious to this, to the inherent danger of so many people pressing in towards him, kneeling at his feet, begging to be healed.  
Without even stopping to consider the permissiveness of his actions, Louis springs forwards, using his small stature and military muscle memory to weave through the remaining crowd until he reaches Harry’s side. There he finds Niall and several other young men, as well as the girl from the baseball bleachers, pleading with Harry to come with them, trying desperately to usher him away from the swarm of clamoring bodies. 

“It’s too many, Harry, and people just came with cameras—”

“Let them come, I’m not hiding.” 

“Harry please, there’s no way to control the crowd, there’s never been this many people—”

“I’m fine, trust me.” Harry touches yet another person, a man with no outward sign of sickness save his wasted form. 

Louder and louder the crowd grows, and Louis feels frozen in place, jostled like a rooted tree as people begin to trample their fellows in pursuit of Harry’s touch. Niall begins to yell, to attempt to direct traffic, but his commands ring out uselessly. People start to rip at Harry’s clothes, clawing at him, desperate for anything, any piece of him they can manage. 

Instinct kicks in then, one honed over Louis’ entire lifetime, the same that had saved Harry from trying to rescue a wounded bear and carried him home after he’d nearly killed himself attempting to re-home a wasp nest. Louis barrels forwards and catches Harry up in his momentum, snapping his head at Niall and the others to close in around them and create a ring as they guide Harry from what has turned into a mosh pit.  
Putting a firm hand on his back, Louis presses Harry’s shoulders down into a slump, his other arm securely around the healer’s waist. The noise around him fades to static, and his mind finds the crystal focus only adrenaline can afford. For how long they battle against the swarms of people he can’t tell, but eventually they break free and begin to run. Niall directs them towards a side alley before splitting off with the girl in the opposite direction. He calls out, “Meet at the Pink Palace!” 

Louis steers Harry around the alley corner and out of sight, finally slowing to catch his breath halfway down the pothole-filled throughway. The world reforms in his senses as Harry turns in his arms. 

“I was fine. They wouldn’t have hurt me, Lou.” 

Shaking his head in disagreement Louis fingers a dangling scrap of fabric by Harry’s shoulder, the action proving much more intimate than he’d meant it. He hears Harry’s breath hitch. 

“Sure.” Louis finds a scrape down Harry’s arm that’s filling with a fine line of blood. He runs his thumb along this, collecting the red into the prints of his fingers. “They’d have ripped you apart.” 

“I could have handled it.” 

“Let’s not test that theory, alright? Do you know where we’re going?” 

“To Taylor’s bar,” Harry smiles, slipping his hand inside Louis’. 

They enter the Pink Palace from the back, from a little ivory door tucked between crumbling bricks that’s only half latched and is missing a bottom hinge. Louis’ heart doesn’t relax until he sees Niall from across an oddly decorated lounge. 

Immediately a blonde woman with long, blue nails descends on Harry, throwing a shawl around him before squeezing his shoulders tightly. 

“We can’t have that happening again. We’ll have to plan differently, it’s too risky.” 

Louis bristles at the protectiveness in her voice, at the care with which she hands Harry a water-filled, lidless canning jar. 

“Got one for me, Tay?” 

“You think I’m here to wait on your ass? Get your own, Ed.” 

The room breaks into laughter. There are five other men there besides Louis, Niall, and Harry, and five women including Taylor and the girl Louis now recalls as Eleanor. Most he doesn’t recognize from the town square; it looks like the new people have been busy inside the back room of the Pink Palace sorting a hefty amount of mail. 

“This is Louis,” Harry says softly, more to the blonde woman than the whole room. 

“Louis.” The woman holds out her hand. “We’ve all heard so much about you. I’m Taylor.” 

Louis takes her hand, surprised to find it warm and comforting, very like his mom’s. 

“Well don’t just sit here, make room for the guest! Aiden, scoot yourself over for fuck’s sake.” 

“ _Are_ you a guest, Louis, or one of us, now?” Niall chimes in, raising a can of beer along with his eyebrows. 

Louis hasn’t recognized his presence as a conscious decision. Tentatively, he nods. “Suppose I’m… here.”  
“You _are_ here, haven’t slipped out of the old timestream yet!”

This enthusiastic response comes from a well-built man with a buzz cut and short beard. He jauntily pushes up from where he’s been reclining on one of many old sofas and approaches Louis with his hand out. 

“I’m Liam.” Liam smiles so big Louis wonders if he can possibly see over his cheeks. “This is Cara, Aiden, Shawn, Bleta, Ed, Eleanor, Nick, Kendall, and you know Taylor.” 

Louis nods to the appropriate people, a bit overwhelmed. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the knack of us soon,” says Bleta, a short woman with strikingly dark eyebrows and a soothing voice. 

“Any friend of Harry’s is a friend of ours,” adds one of the many almost identical looking white boys— Shawn, Louis thinks, though he can’t be sure. 

Music drifts in from the front of the bar, and soon everyone has begun chatting and drinking as if Louis’ presence were the norm. All aside from Harry. He watches the group with glassy eyes, taking in their laughter and discussions, but apart from them too, as if he were looking in through a window. He takes Louis’ hand again. 

“Um,” Louis scoots a bit closer on the faded pink sofa they’d claimed—the springs have almost worked their way through the cushion and his ass might have a permanent dent—and whispers, “Are they together?” He nods towards where Niall has begun to make out with one of the boys, possibly Shawn, in the corner. 

Harry tilts his head. “You mean, partners?” 

“Sure.” Louis swallows another mouthful from the water he’d been given. 

“Sometimes.” Harry shrugs and flashes one and a half dimples. 

“Free love and all that,” Louis finishes for him. His hand has begun to grow sweaty, but still Harry clings on. “Sure this isn’t an orgie cult and you just get off watching them all go at it?” 

Harry’s eyes pop wide and Louis can’t help breaking out into a chortle. 

“I do _not_ get off—”

“I know, relax, I’m teasing.” 

Harry bites his lip, and when he speaks his voice has lowered. “Does this mean you’re staying? You believe me?” 

Taylor’s backroom is a small space for thirteen people, yet for all the happy chaos around them, when Louis twists on the threadbare couch to face his former best friend, everything else fades into silence. 

“I can’t really say I believe in God, no. But I believe in you.” 

Harry’s eyes shine at this. He looks as if Louis has gifted him the moon. “That means everything, Lou.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Louis fields, tugging his hand free from Harry’s at last so he can reach up and tuck a stray curl behind the healer’s ear. Harry’s cheeks pinken at the contact and Louis feels the old familiar tug of longing that used to mark Harry’s close proximity. 

“Could you braid it?” Harry asks then, his face hopeful. 

“S-sure.” Louis takes hold of his swelling heart and tries to act as if Harry hasn’t just offered _him_ the moon. “Gonna have to sit on the floor, though.”

“Too tall for you now?”

“Shut up,” he retorts, but not without a grin.

As the Eleven drink and dance and smoke and kiss and sit in each other’s laps and speak of ideas and books and music and memories, Louis braids Harry’s hair, the tactile activity proving soothing and restorative. The whole atmosphere of Taylor’s feels communal, safe, and for the first time since deployment Louis enjoys a comradery he hadn’t known he’d been desperately missing.

Soon the day turns to night and only latent christmas bulbs illuminate the small space. The old couches become makeshift beds, and bodies serve as pillows as a haze of smoke and whispers rise to blur the ceiling. Louis claims two stacked bean-bags behind the pink couch and hunkers down, exhausted suddenly with the sort of tiredness that only comes when one has released a breath held for much too long. Before he drifts to sleep, Harry slings his arm over the couch back and finds his hand, and holds it, and for the second night since Vietnam Louis’ mind settles into peaceful rest.

*

Louis awakes to a warm touch across his forehead.

“You alive, soldier boy?”

He opens his eyes and immediately blinks at the bright sunlight streaming in from the open window. A woman’s face stares down at him, her lips candy red, her eyes outlined in garish blue, her hair loose and long with tiny braids and feathers stuck in. He finally recalls her name: _Taylor._

“How long have I been out?”

“Well, it’s now one in the afternoon, so.” Taylor offers him a hand up, which he takes. Though the beanbag has been comfortable, his back still holds a nasty stiffness. 

“I don’t usually sleep that long,” Louis mutters, looking around for the rest of the crew, but they’ve gone. 

“Mmm. It’s probably good for you. I’m glad you feel rested. Saved you some breakfast if you’d like, it’s through that door on the bar.” 

Louis smooths at his hair, knowing it to be a worthless exercise. “Thanks, that’s very kind.” 

Taylor gives him a swift once-over, obviously deciding on something. “The others are in the square again. Don’t worry, we took precautions this time.”

“Oh…” Discomfort has been swelling in his stomach absent Harry and the smoke and music and darkness. He feels starkly out of place. “I should probably go home, my roommate’s likely waiting to kill me.” 

Taylor shrugs, the slip-dress she wears sliding off of one shoulder. “Taken care of. Niall called Zayn last night. You are sticking around, aren’t you?”

Letting just a little of his vulnerability show, Louis sighs and returns her shrug. “Should I?” 

Taylor’s crystalline laugh fills the room and she purses her lips and reaches for Louis’ hand. “Let me tell you about your friend Harry.” She pulls him down beside her on another half dilapidated sofa. “He’s special, that boy. Believe me when I tell you it’s been years since a man looked at me and really _saw_ me, not _this_ , not what I do at night, but who I _am_... and here he just reached out to me and—” Taylor pauses to swipe the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’d been sick for a while at that point. This life it—it eats you up eventually. But Harry didn’t care. He walked into my bar with all the reverence of a preacher coming into church on Sunday. He made me feel that I was someone worth loving again. And now I know that’s because I _am_.”

Louis relaxes a little beside the woman. “I’ve known him since before all this, though. It’s different.” 

“Yeah, it is. I can see that. You know he doesn’t touch people ‘cept when he’s healing them? If we wanna hug him we’ve got to basically drape him in fabric. But _you_ , he holds your hand. I’d say you’re pretty special to him.” 

Louis blinks at Taylor, unable to think of anything to say. 

“So you’ll be back?” 

Louis stands and gives the blonde woman a small nod. “Yeah. I’ll be back.” 

*

Louis does come back. Every day for the next week he finds himself shadowing Harry and his Eleven, whether they’re in the town square, the baseball field, Robin’s shop, or Taylor’s bar, but after Taylor’s revelation he opts not to spend the night again, self-consciousness plaguing him more than the terrors in the darkness of his own room. 

Still, he gleans lots from observing the group even during waking hours, and Louis, always quick to assess situational dynamics, soon understands more than the Eleven perhaps expect him to. Taylor functions as both the group’s leader and Harry’s right hand. She possesses a quick charm and obvious devotion, but also a talent for making decisions, which Harry very much lacks. It is she who decides when and where the ‘meetings’ will be, how that information will be made known, and what specific hurdles each gathering might need to prepare to overcome. Louis soon learns that the ‘peace and love’ touted by Harry’s movement does not elicit similar responses from those whose power he de facto challenges. Churches, for instance, have labeled him a false prophet and worse, often sending counter protesters with signs that read “WITCHCRAFT IS OF THE DEVIL” and similar warnings. Other religious institutions react similarly, eager to discredit Harry’s use of God’s power as illegitimate, fearing their own smoke and mirrors will come up short when stood beside the remarkable trail of healings Harry leaves in his wake. And they have good reason to fear, as more self proclaimed God-fearing people flock to the meetings daily. 

Corporations don’t exactly send fan mail either. Hospitals continue to bar Harry from entry, denying the sickest populations a chance of healing, and Galeglen’s local pharmacy hosts several protests where speakers from three of the major drug companies decry Harry’s gifts as tricks and lies and propaganda. The police have mostly left the meetings alone, as Taylor has been meticulous about getting permits for gatherings on public properties, but the first time Harry instigates a somber march through downtown, his followers’ signs proudly displaying the most fervent anti-war sentiments the small town has ever seen, that changes. Now officers lurk at the crowd’s edge and Taylor finds herself shuffled around at city hall, never seemingly able to speak to the right person for her request. 

Media presence has grown too, from the odd out of town newspaper sending a cameraman, to neighbor television stations sparing whole crews to cover ‘miracle healing’ exclusives. The task of protecting Harry—and those who seek his care—from this exploitation falls to the burlier of the Eleven, Liam, Niall, Aiden, and Ed, as well as Eleanor, who despite her slight frame carries a black belt and can lift even Liam-sized people with no problem at all. The rest deal with organizing lines and shuffling people and making sure Harry stays intact. Louis falls into the latter group. 

Another aspect Louis never thought to consider is _money_. Of course Harry never asks for anything in return for his care, but donations come in nonetheless. Cara and Nick are responsible for seeing that the money is used thriftily, either for food, other basic living expenses, or postage. And the _postage._ Louis had never imagined so much mail could exist. Everyday bags of it come in from Galeglen’s post office, and every day the Eleven work late into the night sorting and opening and answering what they can. Letters pour in from all around the country, then around the world, from the sick and dying and suffering, souls who Harry could not heal if he were granted a thousand lifetimes on earth. 

And this, Louis realizes quickly, is his role in the group, to protect Harry from the exhaustion of too many hopes. As the crowds have gotten larger and the lines longer, Harry returns from the ever-lengthening meetings with hardly enough energy to even eat. He falls asleep moments after sinking into a chair or sofa, and is dead to the world until morning. Louis makes sure his former best friend never sees the heart wrenching message from the desperate mother in Indonesia, or the letter from a little boy in Ireland who has terminal cancer. 

Taken in whole Louis feels he has a _purpose_ again, and he relishes that. He wakes up every morning and has a place to go, a task to do, a way to be beside the boy he’s always been next to, has always protected from the harshness of the world. By the beginning of his second week with Harry and the Eleven, Louis realizes the empty bottles under his bed have disappeared. Zayn notices a change in him too, and brings it up one morning as they sit eating breakfast and sharing the paper. 

“That’s two bowls already.” 

“Sorry?” Louis asks around a mouthful of cheerios, raising his head from where he’s had it buried in the entertainment section. Several celebrities have started to give quotes about Harry, expressing interest. 

“I said that’s two bowls you’ve eaten already, and I didn’t have to force them down you.” Zayn smiles at him with a tinge of pride. 

“Oh. Guess you’re right.” 

“Lou,” Zayn folds up the headlines and leans back, his delicate fingers tapping on the table, “Can I come with you today?”

Louis replaces his spoon in the nearly cheerio-free milk of his bowl. “Of course. But I thought—”

“Yeah, I know, and I still do but… I have this gut feeling. And you’ve become slightly more human. I just wanna see for myself.” 

With much excitement from Niall, Zayn is welcomed into the day’s events, which begin with a meeting at the baseball field. Close to four-hundred people pack the small area, some having brought tents to camp out the night before in hopes of a better place in line. Louis hands Zayn a plastic stake from the handful he’s grabbed and instructs his roommate on how best to pound them into the earth. Bleta comes behind them with a rope to loop from one to another, creating a que. 

“This place is at capacity,” Zayn murmurs, eyebrows arched at the sheer numbers of people. “Surely Harry doesn’t heal all of them?” 

“Most are here just to watch.” 

“And listen, don’t forget, don’t they come to hear Harry’s all important message?” Zayn adds with thinly masked sarcasm. “You really do think it’s purely entertainment?.” 

“Just calling it like I see it, not making any value judgments, Zayn.”

“So you don’t actually _believe_ what he says.” 

Louis checks around to make sure none of the others are closeby. “Don’t know. It’s hard not to believe in _Harry_ , if nothing else. You’ll see.” 

Zayn sits beside Louis on the soft grass as the meeting begins with Harry advocating, as he always does, for peace between souls, for kindness towards all humanity, for the end of conflicts and wars. He tells a story very reminiscent of the Hunchback of Notre Dame about a social reject that shows kindness towards all he comes across, giving of himself even to those who treat him as an adversary. It strikes Louis that all the little stories Harry had invented when they were children have grown with him, matured into narratives he can pull out on a dime and form into fables that illustrate his points in a way that holds audience attention. Perhaps the calming pace of his slow, low voice also aids in that end. 

After concluding with an admonition to be like the Good Outcast, Harry invites his listeners to come and be healed by the light of God’s love. Zayn tenses beside Louis as the first man in line hobbles towards Harry, his cane tapping the matted grass before him. 

“My brother,” Harry greets before laying his hands atop the man’s eyes. “Open your eyes and see.”  
Zayn cranes his neck, but soon the crowd is all doing the same, and their view is blocked. Only when the cheering dies down and the man walks past them—wiping tears and without his cane, stopping every few seconds to look up at the sky and gaze at the crowd around him—does Zayn jolt up, yanking Louis with him.

“Get me closer, Lou,” he rushes out, his eyes wide. 

Louis does his best to get Niall’s attention and move through the pressing people to Harry’s side. Room is made for them, but Zayn doesn’t even notice; he can’t take his eyes off of the young man laid at Harry’s feet, his fragile legs folded uselessly beneath him. Harry crouches at the man’s side and places one hand atop the man’s thigh, the other flat against his forehead. The crowd holds their collective breath, but only Zayn and Louis and the others directly at the front of the packed encirclement can see the crippled man’s legs begin to straighten and enlarge with the sinewy bulk of muscle. 

Zayn grips Louis’ arm like a vice as the man reaches out and tugs on Harry’s robes, lifting himself upright on wobbly legs, steadying himself very like a newborn colt. With a cry the man folds Harry in his arms then falls to his knees and, before Harry can protest, kisses his sandaled feet. 

“Do not worship me, friend, please stand, please,” 

“Come with me, that’s it,” Eleanor steps in, gently lifting the man from the ground and walking with him as the friends that deposited him at Harry’s feet meet him at the que’s rope and embrace him in a myriad of hugs. 

Both hands planted on his hips as if such a stance will keep him from keeling over, Zayn leans in close to Louis’ ear. “Do you realize what he is?” 

Louis turns, holding down the burning truth beneath his ribcage so it can’t engulf his mind. “He’s Harry.”  
Zayn nods, understanding. “I’m in.” 

*

Louis realizes that it feels _good_ to have a use, a purpose again, to wake up every morning and know he’s expected somewhere to do something. Zayn begins to join Harry’s little group of followers more and more, oftentimes spending entire days observing the healings that continue to draw ever more people to the small town of Galeglen. Almost immediately Zayn strikes up a close camaraderie with Liam that—as Louis observes one night in the back of Taylor’s bar as the usual smokey haze fills the softly illuminated room—soon becomes more. Eventually the Twelve, as Louis now calls them, stay either at Taylor’s or Zayn’s every night, hardly ever separated, close knit as family. 

Louis doubts sometimes whether this lifestyle can continue on; it half seems too good to be true, their little commune of people, coupled up and polyamourous and spending their days at healings and peace rallies, and for several weeks, as Zayn becomes in their lives, Louis feels like inevitably the other shoe will soon drop. He knows Harry’s healings are unsustainable, that the constantly increasing crowds and ever expanding media attention will soon become too much, but he doesn’t voice such thoughts aloud because he finds himself wishing life _could_ continue on in this way. The Twelve have become a sort of salve for him; their company eases his pain, and when he finds himself alone now, he hardly knows how to cope. 

They all lay draped around the living room of Zayn’s place one evening after a dinner prepared by Liam and Bleta, smoking weed and cigarettes in equal measure. Harry lays his head in Louis’ lap as the slow chatter drones on and falls completely asleep, and this is when Zayn softly voices Louis’ worst fear.

“We can’t stay here.” 

Liam, whose arm has been draped around Zayn’s neck for the better part of the evening, gives a sad nod. “I agree.” 

“The question is, where do we go? No one will have us. I mean, except the very people that want us. But they don’t own the land or the buildings.” Cara says, herself atop Kendall’s lap, their limbs intertwined. 

“Then we do just that, take him to the _people_.” 

“How do you mean, Zayn?” 

“I’ve had an idea. We can’t just _move_ , another local would present the same problems, eventual overcrowding, breaking city ordinances, annoying the local businesses enough that they begin to protest our presence.” 

“So we _do_ stay put?” Niall interjects, having consumed the most potent of their buds. 

“I think I get it,” Eleanor replies, “We travel, move around, don’t give the authorities any prolonged stays to disapprove of. Keep the media on their toes, unable to just cluster in one place. I like it.” 

“Well I’d like it too, if we all had built-in wheels,” Ed says, ever the eternal optimist. 

Zayn snubs a blunt out on his thick jean jacket. “Funnily enough, I thought of that too.” 

“So does that mean you’re coming with us, then?” Liam asks, his eyes betraying how very much he hopes the answer will be yes. 

“For the time, yeah.” 

“What about that all-important government class?” Louis speaks softer than the rest, his teasing more a whisper, as he doesn’t want to disturb Harry. 

“Figured it can go fuck itself for a while.” 

“Look,” Nick, who has tended to stay silent during discussions in favor of weighing which side would eventually win, sits up from his reclined position on one of Shawn’s legs (Niall is straddling the other) to say,  
“Either you join us or you join us, none of this ‘for a while’ stuff. This is a family. They’ll try to break us apart, reporters and the like, try for the weakest link to get at him. We can’t afford that.” 

“I really saw you voicing that opinion when Louis joined, Nicholas.” Taylor, reclining in an armchair, doesn’t look up from filing her nails as she says this.

“Well obviously he’s loyal to Harry. Look at him, fuck’s sake.” 

“For the record, I’m not thrilled at the prospect of your continual company either, Nick.” Zayn pushes his silky black hair back off his face and leans into the burly man beside him. “I’ve not been around this many white people on a constant basis since I tried to assimilate into Boy Scouts.” 

“See, talk like that. We’re about _encompassing_ love here, and you’ve already, in just one sentence, made it seem like there’s something exclusionary about us. This isn’t SDS. We’re not rabble rousers. That image is exactly the kind of scandal the media is looking for. They’ll use any excuse to come after us, and so will the authorities. We’re not here to make enemies.” 

“Nick,” Shawn pulls on his shirt collar, but it’s Taylor who puts a stop to his mouth. 

“If you don’t allow Zayn the time to find his own place in this, Nick, then maybe you’re here for the wrong reasons.” She sits up properly and looks around the rest of the room, gathering everyone’s attention. “We’ve already made enemies. We’ve already committed to this, whatever ‘this’ is. We’re a small thing now, but we could grow. This has the potential to be sweeping, and fearing new, even critical, voices does nothing to help our expansion, or our evolution. Harry’s promise of a better world seems more tenable to those of us who’ve experienced less trauma in our lives. Zayn isn’t white like us, and he has the right to be skeptical. You need to step out of the way, Nick.” 

Bleta takes a swig of beer. “Amen to that.” 

“S’about time one of you said it,” Zayn agrees, planting a sloppy kiss on Liam’s neck. 

Nick grunts, but acquiesces the point. Eleanor takes the opportunity of Taylor sitting up to climb into her lap, and from this perch she says, “I don’t think Nick’s presumption about the media is right awayways. What the media will sniff out is us trying to show them some image driven, squeaky clean, sanitized lie. We’re not saints here. We’re the opposite. We’re the people who can’t walk into a church without melting its walls. God wasn’t _for me_ , ever, until this—” Eleanor hesitates and motions to Harry’s sleeping form, “This _child_ made God big enough for me to fit too. 

Harry stirs slightly, his cheek nestling tighter to Louis’ thigh. Instinctively Louis begins to stroke his curls, his fingertips lingering just above Harry’s scalp, moving through one messy ringlet after another. He loses himself in the motion for a time, and when he jogs back to the present he finds twelve pairs of eyes silently studying him. 

“What did he heal for you, Lou?” Kendall asks, her expression wide and eyes damp, as if looking at them together has moved her. 

“Um…” Louis licks his lips, but lubrication doesn’t fix his loss for words. 

Taylor rolls her eyes and saves him. “If you’ve not got eyes enough to see that, Kendall, I’m not sure I trust you sorting mail.” 

The younger woman takes the reprimand as a cue not to ask further. They’ve all been witness to Louis’ nightmares on the occasions they’ve crashed for the night at Zayn’s place, though no one has yet asked directly why, though other veterans have been healed, Louis’ struggles continue. Several of the group have even taken turns slapping Louis’ cheeks until he wakes, until the sweat stops soaking through his nightshirt, until his forehead un-knots and he starts to breathe evenly again. 

As the others break off into separate conversations or intimate sleeping arrangements, Taylor scoots Kendall from her thighs and comes over to Louis, bending close so only he can hear as she passes on her way to the kitchen. “I wonder when he’ll realize why his magic can’t heal you.” 

Louis swallows, the yearning in his chest strung too tightly to bear. He withdraws his hand from Harry’s curls and fights back an attack of tears; he desperately wants to hide in the comfort of his own bed, but Harry still hasn’t stirred.


	5. Make Way

“Make way, make way! May the roads be straight and the traffic light!” Zayn honks the bus’s bleating excuse for a horn as he puts it in park. Everyone save Harry has gathered at the junkyard with various cans of paints and aerosols, but for what, they haven’t been told. 

“You bought a _bus?_ ” Niall squints sideways at the decrepit thing and makes a face. 

“I _salvaged_ a large cruising vehicle for our illustrious uses.”

“It’s perfect.” Taylor plants her hands on her waist and shakes her head in a wide grin. 

Louis helps Shawn and Aiden flush out the engine and change the remaining fluids that Zayn hasn’t needed to replace in order to get the thing running. The others set about washing, then painting, then furnishing the bus, stripping out the rows of yellow plastic seats and replacing them with anchored couches and armchairs and beanbags. Kendall and Shawn decorate with bead curtains and blankets while Niall paints the bottoms of the windows in flamboyant patterns. By the time they’ve finished, the bus is transformed from junk to work of art. Even Niall has to admit its renovation is a success. 

Harry, who had been off in the woods alone, is thrilled with both the idea and the craftsmanship. For a solid hour they load the bus with their various belongings and ample supplies of smokes and food. When they’ve prepared for every eventuality they can think of, Zayn turns to Harry with the all important question of when to leave.

With a small voice and more than a little apprehension in his tense body, he shrugs. “I need to say goodbye to my mom. Then, whenever.” 

The group lets up a whoop of cheers and breaks off to take care of their separate business before departure. Louis lingers, though, knowing that Harry is ill at ease. 

“But.” He prompts. 

“I’m a bit scared, is all.” 

Louis looks into the healer's green eyes, noting the flecks of gold in them as the sun plays across his face. “What could you possibly be scared of.” 

Harry sighs, his chest rattling with it. “False promises. Disappointing people. It—it all makes me anxious, all that they do, how much they believe. I don’t even believe in me as much as them and, well… I’m _me_.” 

“S’not a war zone, Harry,” Louis says a bit harshly, his throat going tight. “Besides.” The lie comes easily because he knows what Harry needs to hear. “They’re not here for _you_ , they’re here for what you can do for them. Just like, you know. Everyone who believes in anything.” 

Harry looks both calmer and slightly deflated. “That’s rather shallow.”

“I’m rather shallow,” Louis smirks, “Trust me. It’s more big picture and less _you_. There’s no need to be nervous.” 

Harry smiles a little, half of one dimple peeking from his cheek. “If you say so.” 

*

_“How does it feel, how does it feel!”_

Louis watches the twilight fields pass by out the window, not party to the sing-a-long. 

_“To be without a home! Like a complete unknown! Like a rolling stone!”_

Niall holds out the ‘O’ of stone, and Shawn predictably laughs. Eleanor and Bleta are sharing a joint, cuddled together in a pile of limbs, kissing intermittently, while the others either play card games or sift through the bags of mail they’ve brought along. Liam drives, kept company by Zayn and the static-heavy radio. 

The outside light has turned a dusky rose, the clouds illuminated in oranges and pinks. Louis has seen such a sky before, but here no plumes of smoke create artificial clouds and no flames reflect against the horizon. He swallows down the slick rise of his stomach and scooches his hips out a little, tilting his back at a greater angle against the seat, hoping it will help the upset. He hears a moan and his gaze flickers over to the two women now steadily making out as the world around ignores them. A sourness mixes with Louis’ churning stomach. Harry lays asleep in the back of the bus, dead to the world, and Louis wants nothing more than to join him, even just to watch him breathe. _Want_ consumes his mind until the bus begins to slow and eventually comes to a halt. Despite being parked, Louis realizes they’re rocking gently side to side. 

“Holy shit,” Aiden breathes, standing with his hand still full of cards to stare out the window. 

Zayn first, then Liam and the other Twelve exit the bus to stand under the strange golden glow of magenta skies. The wind whips away Zayn’s words as fast as he can utter them, but Louis understands well enough, as his outstretched arm is pointing towards a large gray cloud that seems to be dripping down to earth, an inverted ice-cream cone, its point touching the grassy plains around them like the tip of a spinning top. Bleta lets out a scream and clings to Nick; the others stand rooted in place, shock overtaking them as the tornado spins closer, the whir of the wind nearly deafening. 

_Wind_. 

Louis throws himself back into the bus, his careful footing useless as the vehicle rocks back and forth like a ship at sea. Finally he reaches Harry, still asleep, his face calm, oblivious to the chaos descending on them. Louis shakes his shoulder with an urgent grip. 

“Harry, Harry come with me, you’ve got to get out of here.” Louis pulls him up even before his eyes have fully blinked open. 

“Lou?” Harry’s movements are thick, wobbly, half-molted. 

“Come on, hurry,” Louis tugs him through the bus and out to the others, who still remain transfixed by their approaching doom, none of them certain the tornado won’t simply turn and head another way, none of them quite accepting that its path is already marked. 

“Everyone! Into the ditch! Cover your head with your arms, stay flat to the ground!” Louis begins physically pushing every single person towards the roadside gully, though his efforts are met with blank stares or, in Zayn’s case, a doubtful expression. Harry has come to full consciousness though, and wanders away from Louis towards the cloud, his eyes fixed on something in its midst. 

“Harry!” Louis calls to him, his voice crackling with the strain of speaking above the storm. Around them the orange light has begun to dim, blotted out by the swirling dust and dirt of the cloud. Louis can barely hold his eyes open to see against the motes of irritation that whip his skin like micro-bullets, yet Harry keeps walking _forwards_. 

“HARRY!” Louis lunges after him, his legs shaking against the strain of air that now seems denser than syrup, against a whole world turned to invisible drag. Through half closed lids Louis watches as Harry spreads his arms against the wind, his robe rippling from his skin like streamers, outlining his shoulders, ribcage, the curve of his thighs. His curls fly every which way, medusa’s hair fighting invisible opponents and somehow, through it all, Harry stands firm. 

When Harry speaks he doesn’t yell atop the wind, nor strain his vocal chords in competition with the storm; instead his voice slips between the bluster, leaking through the cracks of nature’s roar. 

_”Peace, be still._

In an instant the gale freezes, and next a great leaching occurs, a sapping of dark from around them, an emptying of pink and orange from the sky as if a drain has opened in the heavens to suck the spiral cloud back into condensed nothing. 

Moments after Harry’s words, Louis finds himself standing on a deserted road beside a grassy field, soft twilight surrounding him and fireflies flitting through the air as they dance to the music of chirping crickets.   
Harry falls to his knees on the road, his head bowed in exhaustion, but Louis doesn’t move forwards; he’s magnetized to the earth. The others begin to stand from the ditch and Taylor is the first to race forward and support Harry’s wilting form, her cries of wonder seconded by everyone else who hasn’t lost their ability to speak. One by one the Twelve flock around Harry, their faces pale, their eyes eaten up with awe, holding memories not meant for human minds. Zayn turns to look back at where Louis is still rooted in place, his eyes sharing the same pity growing in the miserable depths of Louis’ own soul as understanding breaks upon him in a dawning so bright he can no longer block it out. He wishes he didn’t understand. 

*

They stop first at an old fairground and park amidst the skeletons of abandoned rides and the litter of decaying prize booths. Word spreads quickly, and by the time Louis and Zayn have returned with a cheaply acquired lunch, already a group of fifty or so sits on the grass, awaiting Harry’s appearance. One of the attendees catches Louis’ arm as he makes his way through. 

“Is it really true, what they say? Can he heal?”

Louis nods at the young woman, unable to give verbal assurance. She accepts even this gladly, and she smiles her bloodshot eyes soften. Louis hurries on, panic fraying the edges of him as by mid afternoon a crowd of several hundred pack in around the little bus. By evening more than a thousand have assembled, and still Harry instructs them to wait for more. Finally, after another thirty minutes, Harry gathers himself from where he’d been sitting on the bus floor—cross legged, his crystals in his right palm, eyes closed in a type of prayer—and exits with Liam and Niall to either side, helping him to climb atop the hood, and from there to stand astride the bus entire. The others join him on the high surface of the painted vehicle, lining the sides as a living barrier, but Louis stays inside, preferring to stretch out on his back and block out the crowd hemming them in. 

“My friends,” Harry begins in an expansive voice that separates him from the crowd’s chatter. “Can you see what I’m holding between my fingers? It is so infinitely small. A simple mustard seed. But do you know how mighty it becomes? Never think something cannot achieve greatness because it seems to lack potential. This new world we’re building, it’s like this mustard seed. We are small now, but as we grow, we will flourish and fill this entire earth with the love and light of God.” 

The crowd hums in response. Louis closes his eyes and tries to shut out the painful ache in his heart. 

“You’ve come here today because you hope for a better world. I am telling you, it is at hand. _You_ are building it. You have seen the evils of our time, the war, the pain, and you seek relief. Come to me, all of you who are weary and have heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Lay your shackles of pain and suffering at my feet and learn to live in the light of God.” 

Louis can hear the shuffle of the crowd pressing forward and he knows that Harry has slid from the roof to the ground. As Louis listens he finds that every cry of healed joy brings him only more feelings of isolation and self-pity, for he _has_ come to Harry, weary and burdened, filled with pain and suffering, and _he_ has found no rest, only torturous longing and unmentionable truths. Is he so damaged, so beyond hope, that even a being who can halt a storm with mere words can’t free him of his trauma? Is Louis so broken that even miracles are beyond his reach? 

He stays in the bus til nightfall, til the lines of those asking to be healed have finally dwindled to nothing and bonfires begin to spring up around them. Dancing beings when music starts to blast from radios. Louis slinks outside when Shawn and Niall disturb his peace, tipsy and handsy and already thrusting their hips together. After so long in the dark of the bus, the firelight seems garish. Still, Louis makes his way towards the largest one, hoping to blend into the fray and not have to answer any questions as to his whereabouts. He wonders vaguely where Harry has got to, as he usually sleeps after so many healings; his assumed appearance is the true reason Louis lingered in the bus alone.

Around the bonfire, people are smoking and dancing in a loose ring with beers clutched in their hands and smiles on their faces. Louis feels like a ghost in their midst, invisible, an outsider. Someone runs towards the burning piles of logs with a gallon jug and the fire whooshes upwards abruptly. The billowing heat that floods Louis’ face sends him jumping backwards and triggers his damaged brain to remember _that place._ Something touches his arm and he whirls.

“S’alright, Lou.” Zayn proffers a soda bottle. “Here.”

Louis takes it, feeling the phantom blast of the napalm still, the storm of air currents that come like tidal waves to bury you, crush you in sound, sound, sound. Zayn gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, then wanders off without any questions. 

“Dance with me,” a voice says to Louis’ left, and he turns to find a brown haired woman clad in only a mini skirt and open-flapped leather vest be-studded with tassels. Her breasts sink and lift as she follows the music’s beat, and Louis stares more in bewilderment than fascination. The woman takes his hand and pulls him closer.

The beat keeps on, but Louis can’t feel it in his bones, not like the close-packed dancers around him; no, it seems to float across the surface of his skin, not sinking in, not penetrating him, and he realizes with a searing pain that he very much wants it to, he very much wants to be carried away on this strange mass intoxication and _forget_.

The woman presses herself to him, so close Louis can smell her scent, a floweryness mixed with sherry. He chances a glance around and sees similar sights, dancers drawn close to their partners, some in groups of threes and fours, others paired up, all of them with flushed faces and lidded eyes, looking like they are truly peaceful, truly _happy_.

Try as he might Louis can’t smile at the girl gyrating against his groin. She notes this and decides to make up for his assumed shyness by running her hand over the zipper of his jeans. Whatever song now fills the air she begins to sing along to, her voice light and thin, like a sparrow’s. Louis knows his body is responding; he can feel the tight pull between his legs as the woman grins wider and strains upwards to kiss him. 

Louis lets her. She tastes like beer and smoke, but her mouth is wet, and she has lips, skin, blood, and warmth. He likes it.

“Come to my tent?” She whispers, still kissing gently against his jaw.

Louis is going to say yes, is going to down the rest of his soda then find a beer, then maybe another, perhaps three, and let the willing human touch him, caress him, _want_ him. But when he tries to move his feet a horrid suction pulls him back, the grass of the field having turned to mud throughout the evening, and suddenly he’s back, his boots sinking to the ankle, his feet wet, always wet, the mud thick as clay, a monster, a maw, trying to eat him, to devour him into its insatiable belly. 

He runs. He leaves his shoes in the mud and drops his drink and flees into the empty field of tall grass before him, his every nightmare chasing behind. He runs until he no longer wants to escape, until his exhaustion has grown so much that he prefers being caught by his fears to continued fleeing. Falling to the ground, he tries to breathe, in and out, expand and release, but he can’t, his ribcage has stuck in place and something is pressing down on his heart, and his skin has become wet and clammy, and all the while the loneliness he’d felt on the bus grows until it consumes him. 

He hasn’t laid long in the grass before the silence of his solitude is broken.Someone crouches beside him. 

“Lou.”

Large hands pull him up. Louis stands shakily, surprised how well he can see Harry’s face in the moonlight.

“You following me?”

“Yes.” 

“Good. Seen enough yet?” Louis snaps, embarrassed, fragile. 

Harry’s expression falls. “There’s no need to—”

“I need a smoke.” Louis fishes around in his pocket and pulls out a cigarette, then his lighter. The flame flickers violently in the breeze, but serves its purpose. He takes a pull and tries to steady his hands.

“This isn’t forever. I’m going to find a way.”

Louis chokes on his next breath. He doesn’t have the energy to say something reasoned, something rational, like explaining to Harry that clearly he’s too far gone, so he stays silent. Harry, though, sinks to his knees, his curls spilling down his forehead as he faces the ground and unscrews the bottle he's been holding. Grasping Louis’ ankle gently, he pours the bottle’s contents over Louis’ dirt-caked skin and rubs at the mud there, dislodging it, washing it away, cleaning even the crevices between Louis’ toes. In awe Louis stares downwards. 

Having finished one foot, Harry dries it with his robe and begins on the next. When he’s cleaned both to his satisfaction he looks up to meet Louis’ questioning eyes.

“What are you doing, Harry,” Louis asks, his voice tight, strained, for he can’t remember the last time someone bathed him, at least not apart from a field hospital where the sounds of death filled the air. 

“Your feet were muddy.” Harry answers, making no move to rise from his knees. Instead he reaches up and undoes the button of Louis’ jeans, slowly pulling down the zipper as he tugs them off.

“W-what—”

“Let me, Lou. You don’t need to drink yourself into some girl’s bed.”

“I—” Louis gasps in shock as Harry gently peels his boxers down as well. Before he can even register these events as reality, warm lips surround him. He wants to question, wants to protest just out of embarrassment alone, but from the first touch of Harry’s mouth the forces of anguish inside him still. Louis laces his fingers into the mess of curls he’s always loved so much and tries to keep from moaning. His slight arousal quickly matures and for the first time in two years he doesn’t have a scraping emptiness in the pit of his stomach. For the first time in two years he thinks that coming will actually bring him _joy_.

Louis lets himself embrace that hope and relish in how good it feels to find relief. He’s lulled by the steady rhythm of smacking lips and soon his pelvis is tilting in accordance to Harry’s insistent fingers on his hips. Higher and higher Louis builds, and soon his relief begins to spin out of control; suddenly the mere hint of glory becomes too much for him, as if he is unable to contain such beauty in his buckshot soul, and he bursts into tears, and not just dribbling tears but tears from his very core, tears that turn to _sobs_. He sobs, _he sobs_ , eyelids swelling and nose dripping snot, as Harry’s mouth continues.

Sobs give way to whimpers as his body starts to tremble. He tightens his grip of Harry’s curls, knowing his climax will be a rip tide. The pleasure of release is overwhelming, yes, but it’s overshadowed, for as Harry swallows down his cum another weight is drawn from Louis, lifted from atop his organs, wrung out from his saturated spirit, as if his whole being were a freshly-lanced wound free to finally drain. 

Only when Louis has begun to slacken does Harry let go. Gently his lips pop away and he cups Louis with warm hands as he tucks him back into his jeans. The knees of Harry’s robe have stained black, and as he stands Louis notes that his face also bears a new color, a flushed and dewy fuchsia, yet even this can’t equalize the brilliant red of his swollen mouth.  
Louis makes himself close his eyes against the vision before him, against the fulfillment of every fantasy he’s dreamt up over two lonely years. He stomps out the long discarded butt of his cigarette. Tears haven’t stopped running down his face, though he heaves no more. 

“You’ve always been an idealist. Since we were boys,” he whispers.

Harry doesn't respond. He stares up towards the stars as the wind combs his long curls into meringue whips.

“Two years, Harry. You’ve no idea.”

At this the other boy takes Louis’ hand in his. “You didn’t have to go.”

Stung, Louis wrenches away. Harry has softened him, like melting the outer shell of a candy, and now his core lays exposed, seeping. That night in the garden square comes screaming back into his mind.

“Some boy _somewhere_ had to go! Some other boy _died_ so you could stay here!” Louis is yelling now. “Another kid had to _kill people,_ has to hear their screams in his head for the rest of his life because _people like you_ believe in fucking peace and love!” Louis’ voice keeps breaking, shattered, spent, “And I couldn’t do that, Harry, I couldn’t just _magic_ the real world away, I did my _duty_ I served with _honor_ I—this is all so fucking _pointless_ do you think they’ll fucking LISTEN to you, do you think this fucking machine of death and slaughter is just going to implode because you _wave your fucking hand and heal someone_ do you—”

“Louis,” Harry grabs him into a hug, supporting him when moments later Louis’ legs give out and he crumples into a heap. “I don’t hate you.”

At Harry’s words something burning and hard comes to Louis’ throat and he sputters, “ _But I want you to_. What I did, I—I deserve it. You were—right, god…” Louis shudders at the scenes in his mind, the thatched roofs set ablaze, the sallow eyes of hungry children looking through his skin, afraid, terrorized; and the bodies, oh the bodies, bits and pieces of life strewn in the mud, planted as if they could grow the rest of them given half a chance…

Harry rocks him under the glittering sky. “I won’t validate your self destruction, Lou. You can’t change anything if you’re broken, can you? You’ve got to forgive yourself, or they’ve won, or that jungle killed my best friend.”

Burying his face in Harry’s shoulder, Louis confesses his greatest fear. “It stole my soul.”

“No,” Harry presses his lips to Louis’ forehead, a seal, a promise. “A soul must be given, and yours has always belonged to me.”

The sounds of the far distant campfires have died down by the time Harry slowly walks Louis back towards tented civilization. When they arrive at the bus Harry helps him inside, navigating his listless feet around the sleeping bodies of their companions. He lays Louis down in his own corner at the back of the bus, on an old mattress hardly big enough to be called that. A blanket in hand, he joins his friend on the little bed, and without pause takes Louis’ hand. 

Shivers route through Louis’ nerves as he tries to process the strange lightness of his body and come to grips with what has just occurred. 

“Don’t leave me,” Louis manages to murmur.

Harry strokes across his knuckles, then tucks his head into the crook of Louis’ neck, kissing him there, below his ear, on that sensitive, virgin skin.

“I will never leave you, never abandon you. When will you understand, Lou?” Harry’s breath tickles the inside of his ear. 

The nightmares never come for Louis that night, for his hand remains encased in Harry’s.


	6. Loaves and Fishes

The others soon get used to the sight of Harry and Louis curled up together, hands clasped, and no one comments on Louis’ lack of nightmares or the way Harry’s eyes linger on him for brief moments when he thinks no one is looking. Louis doesn’t bring up the events of the field and neither does Harry, though often Louis catches the healer biting his lips, his eyes glassy and blown, and he wonders if Harry is remembering. 

At every new location the crowds grow. No sooner do they stop than an entire tent city springs up around them in anticipation. Bonfires become the norm in the evenings, as does song and dance and smoke trails spiraling up to the stars. People come from every walk of life, though most are young people, free-minded and searching for meaning in a way that won’t destroy their world. 

At an abandoned farm in the heart of corn country, halfway between Chicago and Iowa, they meet their largest crowd yet. Television stations swarm the area like hungry hornets, interviewing the people camped in makeshift tents or sleeping under the sky. The weather turns hot and muggy almost as soon as they arrive, and even the indomnible Taylor catches a sour mood from the sweat and press and demands of the crowd. Louis goes with her and Niall to organize the ‘healings’ line. 

“He’ll be here for days, there’s at least five thousand,” Taylor murmurs, tapping a stake into the soft earth and stringing a chord between it and the stake Louis has just pressed in. 

“We’re not close to a major city either. When they get hungry and thirsty, there’s gonna be no place to go.” Niall’s jaw tightens as he shrugs. 

Louis doesn’t contribute to their worries, but he feels much the same way. People stretch out as far as the eye can see, flanked by the ever-snowballing media. The cameras ache for drama, for a mistake, for any slip up that would reveal Harry and his followers as a dangerous cult; thus far they’ve only been prevented from capturing the healings on tape by fastidious patrolling of the crowd… Louis knows that with these numbers, that will be much harder to manage. 

He also worries for Harry, of course, for the toll it will take on him, touching so many people without rest. Often Louis lies awake at night, Harry softing snoring beside him, and wonders how it can go on like this, how much larger the crowds can grow before they number more than can be counted.

By the time he and Taylor and Niall return to the bus, Harry has already begun to speak, his voice, as always, carrying above the crowd, reaching even to the outskirts of the jostling mass of bodies. Louis listens with half an ear, for though Harry’s stories are never the same, his message remains constant. He finds Zayn sitting against the side of the bus, under the shade, and joins him. The thin man passes Louis his cigarette and he takes a grateful pull. 

“What’s it today?” Louis asks softly. 

“Something about fruits and spirits, I think.” 

“Huh.” Louis passes the smoke back. 

“You ever… nah. Nevermind.” Zayn waves his hand in dismissal.

“What?”

“You ever look at these crowds?” 

Louis raises his eyebrows and motions to the mallet and leftover stakes he’s deposited beside them. “Wish I could say no, Zaynie.” 

“Not like that.” Zayn gets a far away look in his eyes as Harry’s voice drones on above them. “ _Really_ look at them. In their eyes. Wonder why they’re here.” 

“Probably why we’re all here.” 

Zayn shakes his head. “I don’t know, Lou. We wanna change the world. Do these people want that?” 

The crowd around them stares up towards Harry, silent, respectful, mesmerized. He imagines the reasoning behind their eyes. 

“I’m sure they do too. Why else would they care this much?” 

Zayn takes another long drag. “For someone that’s been in war, you’re still so naive, Lou.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I never asked, but seems like things wouldn’t be so bad if you hadn’t. Did you kill people over there?” 

Harry’s speech becomes cadence only above them, his words losing meaning as Louis drops into that cold place between his ribcage, that chasm so empty it sometimes swallows the rest of him like a black hole, its horizon line the strength of his heart. He snatches the cig from Zayn’s fingers again and brings it to his lips, focusing on the heat of it, the rough touch of the paper, the little clouds of smoke wafting away in the slight breeze. 

“Sorry.” Zayn places a hand on Louis’ knee and squeezes. “Sorry, that was thoughtless.” 

Louis leans his head back against the bus, willing the nicotine to travel faster to the pleasure centers of his brain. He can’t close his eyes against the memories, for in darkness they only became stronger. Instead he focuses on the crowd, noting their shoes, how many wear jeans, which ones carry handbags or backpacks. He loses track of time, but Zayn’s hand remains steady and warm on him. 

When Louis next registers his surroundings, Harry is climbing down from the top of the bus towards the line of people seeking his touch. Seeing him jogs Louis from his headspace and he rises to follow. 

He assumes his place at Harry’s side, as do Niall, Liam, Cara, and Taylor, and watches silently as person after person receives the healing they crave. Harry greets each new pilgrim with a smile and a kind word, either clasping their hands or touching their foreheads or laying both his palms upon their shoulders. Some cases take longer than others, but each healed individual leaves with wonder in their eyes and, if not a smile, awe on their faces. 

Hours pass in this way, until the hot sun beating down on them has reduced the field to flies and stink and mud, and still the line hasn't even noticeably diminished. Those who wish to watch the miracles crowd ever closer, and those who decide they _need_ miracles ever increases. Liam’s stomach rumbles loudly, making Louis aware of how antsy the crowd has grown, how the chatter has begun to rumble like a wind turbine and how people are fanning themselves with discarded shirts, paying strangers for a bit of their packed food, scouring beyond the field in search of water. 

Shawn comes up with a bucket of KFC and offers it to Louis. “Five fries and two fish sticks left, man, sorry, Aiden didn’t think to get dinner for the rest of us and we’re all starving.” 

Louis takes the proffered food, only too aware of the row of eyes on him. His own hunger is the last thing on his mind, though. When Harry finishes with a middle-aged woman, Louis pulls him aside quickly. 

“Take a break, eat this, you need to keep up your strength.”

Harry dimples at him. “That’s sweet, Lou. Thank you. But everyone else is hungry too.”

Louis sighs, endearment taking the edge off his frustration. “Yes, but we can’t very well feed five thousand people, Harry.” 

“We’ll just share this, that’s all we need.” 

And before he can be stopped, Harry has passed the bucket to the nearest attendee. Louis watches as the man grabs the two fish sticks and a handful of fries, then passes it to the next person. Of course Louis expects this new recipient to respond angrily, as nothing has been left, but instead she _too_ grabs several fishsticks and a handful of fries. 

Louis blinks. The bucket passes from person to person and each one finds enough to satisfy them. The others haven’t seen this transpire, and are now ushering more people towards Harry to be healed. Harry turns his attention back to his job, leaving Louis open-mouthed and frozen in place, his eyes tracking the progress of the bucket as it makes its way among the masses. 

“Hey, Lou, you get the lunch I sent out?” Aiden asks as he approaches, chewing on a fry still.

Ignoring him, much to Aiden’s confusion, Louis clambers up the grill of the bus, atop the hood and to the roof, his hands almost too shaky to find purchase on the slick body. Once at this higher vantage point he can clearly see the bucket’s journey, down and back and up and along and over, to the hundreds, towards the thousands. He takes a deep breath and sits, his feet falling out from under him like a rag doll. 

Like all impossible things once made possible, the bucket soon becomes just another part of the day. From his perch, though, Louis spots something likely to actually cause trouble. A tv crew, a large one, is moving towards Harry from the right, their booms and mics bobbing above the crowd like spindly dinosaurs, and Louis imagines they’re just as carnivorous.   
Hopping down from the bus, he seeks out Niall. 

“Media’s coming, over from that way. They have the whole shebang.” 

“Right, Eleanor and Nick can handle that, I think they just got back from chasing some away on the east perimeter.” Niall jogs off while Louis resumes his position by Harry, eyes peeled for any long black poles. But a more pressing problem sneaks up on him.

_”Let us through, please, let us through!”_ Screams a woman’s voice.

Immediately Louis recognizes her tone, _knows_ what that desperate screaming anguish means, and in an instant he’s grabbing at Harry, trying to get him out. 

“Harry, come on, back to the bus—” 

But Harry has heard the pleas too and strides forward with all the momentum of a freight train, and Louis can do nothing to stop him. The line of injured and sick part ways, and up through the walls of people come running a man and woman, the woman frantic and in tears, her face blotchy and red and swollen, the man white as a sheet, a small form clutched to his chest. 

“Harry no, Harry…” Louis whispers, his own heart beginning to race, to fear, to panic. A mob of five thousand isn’t survivable, not if they become disappointed, enraged, not if they _turn_ , and of course they will, because this, this is more impossible than the last impossible miracle, this can’t be healed away. In the chaos Louis sees black poles descending, and soon flashing lights blind his eyes. Screams of _’cops!’_ echo in his ears, and then he hears the jangle of officers running up behind the woman and man. He can do nothing to stop what is about to happen, yet he can’t make himself turn away. 

“Please, heal our son.” 

“Ma’am, sir, you need to come with us—” 

“He’s not dead, he’s asleep!” The woman screams, taking the child from his father’s arms and lying him on the grass before Harry, kissing the boy’s forehead and brushing back his flaxen hair. Louis can _see_ the death about the boy; his skin is a lifeless blue, his jaw slack, his joints listless. He’s been dead a while. 

“Let’s get you folks back, Mrs. Conner, get your Johnny back so they can take care of him.” 

The police officers are tugging up both parents, but Louis can see how shaken they are beneath their uniforms. Has this woman stolen her own son’s body from a morg? 

“Johnny?” 

Louis curses to himself as Harry kneels beside the lifeless form. Another camera flash zings like lightning. 

“Johnny, sit up.” Harry takes the corpse’s blue hand in his and lifts the boy’s arm as absolute silence falls over the crowd. Not a soul breathes, the collective vacuum of sound only serving to focus all attention upon Harry and the child, and thus too many eyes see the warm tint of life creep through the little boy’s fingertips, down his arms, up his neck, to his cheekbones. Like a balloon inflating, the child’s muscles pinken with beating blood and his jaw realigns before slowly, Johnny opens his eyes and sits up. 

Two of the policemen crumple to their knees. Johnny’s mother begins to sob wildly and clutch the boy to her chest, but his father simply stares, a hand covering his open mouth. The crowd remains in stunned silence at first, but then a mighty cheer rises, its volume rivaling that of an explosion. Louis raises his eyes from where he’s been watching Harry and accidentally meets the gaze of the lead cameraman, who has clearly just recorded every moment. When he registers Louis, he barks hurried instructions to the rest of his crew and retreats into the masses. 

Louis dives after him. 

The man and his crew have only a ten foot head start, but with the density of the crowd, Louis finds himself lagging far behind no matter how fast he runs. He knocks into anyone in his way, bowling past startled attendees and other groups of media alike. The sea of people goes on forever, and only with the aid of the booms is Louis able to track his prey. Finally, finally the crush of people clears and he sprints, ending in a flying leap towards the cameraman and his machine as a boldly labeled tv station van starts up. 

His aim stays true, and he knocks the man to the ground, but not before another crew member has taken the camera and loaded it inside the sliding doors of the vehicle. 

“You tryin’ to kill me, man?” The unfortunate person beneath Louis’ body yells out. 

“You have _no rights_ to that tape. I demand you give it to me.” 

The man laughs, his other crew members now joining their efforts in pulling Louis off, all five of them needed to stop his scrappy thrashing towards the now-closed van door. 

“Why you guys tryin’ to keep him a secret? That’s the most important thing ever filmed in the history of the world! And you think we’re givin’ it to you?” The man dusts himself off and laughs at Louis. “Fuck you, little dude.” 

The five others throw Louis harshly to the ground before joining their companion in the van and taking off, speeding along the edge of the field with all the urgency of transporting nuclear codes. Louis can only fold in on himself against the damp earth as he tries to come to grips with their new reality. 

_Nothing will ever be the same again._

*

_“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it bet-er-er, remember, to let her into your heart, then you—”_

“Please for the love of God.” 

Louis snorts despite himself. 

“I’m _trying_ to lift the mood,” Niall defends, hugging his guitar to himself like a baby. 

“The only thing lifting around here is my stomach.” Nick has been seasick ever since they came to the boat, three days now, and his chances of gaining sea legs are rapidly diminishing. 

“Don’t blame me, blame El. S’her uncle’s yacht.” 

“Sure, blame the one person who had presence of mind enough to know we needed to get off land.” Eleanor is sprawled across three boat cushions on the floor, licking at a popsicle from her uncle’s well-stocked little freezer.

That’s true enough, Louis reasons. He certainly hadn’t concocted a very doable plan. Though Louis had been expecting it, none of them were entirely prepared for the flood of media and gawkers that descended upon them, swelling the already massive crowd by thousands. Well after midnight Louis finally convinced Harry to stop the healings and retreat into the bus, at which point he passed out from exhaustion; Louis thanked his lucky stars for this, for it made driving through the screaming mass of people slightly easier, as Harry couldn’t hear their pleas. 

Nowhere they went provided safe haven. No road or parking lot or hotel or city could shelter them without frenzied followers coming too. Eleanor’s uncle lived relatively close, on a small lake, and had a boat, and it was determined that putting actual water between Harry and those that sought him would be the best idea. 

Now, of course, they find themselves confined to a relatively small space and subject to winds that have not been gentle for days. Harry alone seems perfectly at ease, but the rest of them are jumpy, on edge, and more than a little shell-shocked from the events of the field. 

“We could play another hand of cards?” Liam offers helpfully. He’s been trying extra hard to boost spirits, especially since Zayn has been more quiet than usual, setting his perfect jaw in a lock against damp eyes on more than five occasions. 

“No one wants to play fucking cards, Liam,” Nick snaps again, his hands over his stomach. 

“Wrong, as always. I’ll play.” Taylor leaves her seat of Bleta and Kendall’s laps and joins Liam on the floor. 

“I’ll see you all in the morning,” Harry says softly, rising from where he’s been sitting at the yacht’s little table to head towards the bunks below deck. 

“Oh. Well, sleep well, H. Try to recharge a bit.” 

Louis notes that when Niall says this, he carries a strange sort of distance in his tone, and not for the first time. It’s as if Harry has ceased to be a human since the miracle, and instead has become something _else_ in his friend’s eyes, and though no one save Louis appears to notice, there’s loneliness etched in Harry’s face as the Twelve pull away. Louis stands and makes to follow Harry, waving goodnight as well. 

When they’re alone in the darkness of the boat’s belly Louis speaks. 

“Remember the summer we made that massive sandcastle? I don’t think I’ve been on a boat since.” 

Harry giggles and slides into his bunk, making room for Louis next to him. “I still couldn’t swim and mom made me wear that awful life vest.” 

“You looked like a boey, scrawny arms and tiny head and then this big orange _blob_.” 

“I let you teach me how to swim after that, didn’t I?” 

“Sure did.” 

A beat of silence follows in which Harry squirms under the blankets, knocking against Louis’ knees with his own. 

“You taught me lots of things, actually.” 

Louis nods in the dark. “I did. Wisdom comes with being older, I suppose.” He lets a teasing tone drift into his voice, but Harry doesn’t giggle in response. 

“There’s…” But Harry squirms again and inhales. “Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” Louis reaches out and finds his best friend’s hand and twines their fingers. “Tell me the nothing.” 

“I just… I wish you could… teach me one more thing.” 

Despite the darkness, Louis knows the look on Harry’s face. His heart thunks unhelpfully within him, but he’s bold enough only to pull Harry’s hand to his chest and keep it there. “I would teach you anything.” 

“But I.” Harry sounds on the verge of tears. “I _can’t_.” 

“You can’t?” 

“I’m on the edge now, I’m—” Harry stops himself. “I’m just tired, that’s all. Nevermind, Lou.” 

The lie in his voice stabs Louis’ heart. “You brought someone _back to life_. You’re allowed to be tired, I think. You’re allowed to want things. If you want.” 

“I am?” Harry sounds hopeful for a second. “No, I don’t need anything. I’m not thinking right.” 

“Harry.” With trembling fingers Louis reaches out and finds the other boy’s face wet with tears.

“He says I’m His son, Lou,” Harry whispers, so softly Louis has to inch closer to hear. “He says I’m the son of God. How… how can I be that. I feel—” Harry presses his palm flat to Louis’ chest, “I feel so _human_ sometimes.” 

Louis lets his hand travel beneath Harry’s jaw, trailing from his neck to his chest and down the crease of his ribcage. He pauses at Harry’s navel. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being human.” 

“But I’m a _weak_ human.”

“Weak?” Louis repeats, whetting his lips as Harry’s pupils catch the dim light. He can’t see even a slight rim of green anymore. He holds the other man’s gaze as his fingers slide, the sound of flesh on cotton too loud in the quiet, for they’ve both stopped breathing. Louis soon finds what he seeks, and Harry jolts at his touch. 

“This is weakness?” Louis cooes, tracing the length of Harry’s hardness with the back of his knuckles.

“Yes.” Harry writhes beneath him. “It’s my flesh, not my spirit.” 

“But you have both. Just like me.” 

Harry lets out a little gasp of a laugh. “But I’m not just like you, Lou.”

“You are tonight,” Louis rebukes, taking Harry’s hand and guiding it between his own legs.

Harry’s fingers graze him lightly, their path uncertain, tentative. Louis props himself up and brings one leg over Harry’s hips, straddling him, hovering above him. 

“Why did you blow me, in the field?” He asks. The air has grown thick between them, hindering the speed of sound.

“I…” Harry swallows and gnaws on his lower lip. He doesn’t answer. 

“Were you—” Louis forms the question in his mouth before he says it— “Jealous?” 

“No!” Harry squeezes his eyes shut at this and shakes his head back and forth on the mattress. “I just knew you wouldn’t want that. What she offered.”

“How did you know? I’ve never said. All our whole childhoods I never uttered one word, I never confessed, I never admitted anything.” 

Harry takes in a slow breath, his chest expanding, nostrils flaring. “No, not with words you didn’t. You’ve never told me anything about yourself with words.” 

Louis’ hand stills its caressing, instead coming to rest warm and steady over the bulge in Harry’s pants. Sighing into this new touch, Harry continues. 

“You’ve never said out loud I’m your best friend. And you never told me you were planning to enlist. And you never said if you would miss me, or if you thought of me, or if you cared for me at all. You never _say_ anything, Louis, you just stare and expect I can read the words in your eyes, and usually I can, but not—not always.” 

“Harry…” 

“I thought it would help, I thought it would ease your pain. That’s why. But I’ve got nothing that’s haunting me, nothing to run away from. I’ve got everything to _embrace_ , I’ve been given...oh Louis, it scares me to even think about. I’ve been given _everything_. And that’s why I’m weak. Because despite it all I still _want this_.” 

Louis can feel the healer’s blood pulsing beneath his palm. He presses a little harder and is rewarded by a sharp intake of breath. 

“I like your weakness.” Louis offers this tenderly, like a gift, extended in hopes of acceptance. Harry makes no reply save to bluck his hips slightly. Louis takes this as an answer. He undoes the ties of Harry’s pants and slides them down. 

Stuttering on the singular adjective, Louis stares in awe and whispers, “Beautiful,” because it’s true, because he wants Harry to know it. “Will you let me touch you, then?” 

Harry bites his lip and his eyes flutter closed as he gives an almost imperceptible nod. With reverence Louis makes a gentle fist around Harry’s hardness and squeezes, palm beginning to slide incrementally. Their skins are smooth and dry, so Louis bends and spits into the clasp of his fingers. 

“You’re as lovely as I always imagined,” Louis whispers as he increases the depth of his grip, the speed of his twist. 

“What is this, Louis?” Harry gulps out, his eyes still clenched shut, yet not tight enough to prevent tears escaping. “Why do I feel like I’m falling? Why does my body suddenly feel so empty?”

“Empty?” Louis repeats, a thrill running through his blood. “Empty how?” 

“Like…” Harry spreads his thighs, his knees falling like blossoming petals off the bed frame. “Your touch isn’t enough. Like suddenly I’m hollow, like the place in me that’s usually content has realized it’s incomplete.” 

“Fuck, god,” Louis gasps, “How long have you known I want you.” He keeps one hand around Harry as the other fumbles with the zipper of his own jeans. 

“Always,” Harry replies. With a soft thud his hips open fully and the bones of his pelvis cut sharp shadows in the dim light. 

Louis lowers himself atop Harry’s offering, his hardness leaving a smear of wet along the inside of Harry’s thigh. “I could fill you, Harry. I _want_ to.” 

Harry rocks into him, stomach trembling from the stretch of his thighs. “Then show me. Teach me what this means. I’m—I’m a virgin, you know.” 

“Of course I know. It’s written all over your body.” Louis sucks a finger into his mouth and pulls it out spit wet and gummy. Gently he pushes against Harry’s entrance, and his heart jumps when the velvet-soft ring of skin opens. 

Harry moans. Soon perspiration sticks his curls down to clammy skin. Louis adds another finger to smooth along Harry’s walls, then a third. He rubs at the taut muscles, soothing them until they cease to clench and jump in shock, instead becoming pliant. 

When Louis pulls his hand free Harry whimpers, a needy, high sound that makes Louis more urgently collect saliva in his palm. He smears the wet over his length and braces himself above the healer, his elbows denting into the mattress. 

“Harry, open your eyes.” 

His lashes blink open, their salty wet casing making them clump together, dark and lovely. “Why?”

For answer Louis angles his hips, pushing the tip of himself against his destination. “Because I need to remember that this is real.” 

The initial breach comes with a cry; Harry quickly clamps his mouth shut, his eyes wide. 

“I know, sweetheart,” Louis soothes, “I know.” 

Harry wraps his arms around Louis’ back and pulls him closer. “More.” 

Bit by bit Harry’s body welcomes Louis in. When the joining is complete Harry’s face relaxes and he begins to breathe normally. “It’s like being whole,” he mumbles. 

Louis can hardly breathe at all, though, for the weights that normally sit on his chest are lifted, and like an animal released from a trap, he has no idea where to direct his new found freedom. He settles in stillness for a while, just enjoying the heat around him, the press from every side, the way Harry holds him securely in place, safe, welcome, needed. 

When he finally begins to build friction Harry’s legs pull together and wrap tightly around his hips. “Do you like this?” Louis gasps, arms starting to tremble with exhaustion.

“Yes…” 

Louis knows when his thrusts find their mark, for Harry groans and clenches around him, so again and again he angles the same way, relentless in his pleasuring, carefully balancing himself on one arm to also grasp Harry’s cock and pull. 

“Are you close?” Louis asks, entranced by the way the boy beneath him has turned boneless, is drenched with sweat, is panting for every breath. 

“I’m falling and there’s nothing to grab on to Louis, and I’m scared, I’m so scared—”

“Don’t be scared, I’m here, I’ve got you.” Louis thumbs over Harry’s slit and finds it wet already, leaking little droplets with each pulse of his heart. “You’re close, baby. You’re very close. You have to let go.” 

“Let go?” 

Louis can feel his balls tighten. “Harry I’m gonna come… fuck—” Louis bucks with the force of it at first, but then his release empties passively into the warmth of Harry’s body. “Harry?” Louis thrusts his tender cock again, his hand still stroking. “Come for me, Harry, come for me.”   
Harry cries, his head shaking feverishly side to side. “You don’t understand what I’d lose.” 

Louis pauses, and Harry scoots up, unsheathing Louis from his warmth, freeing his hardness from Louis’ touch. 

“You’re right, I don’t understand.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Lou. This… this isn’t who we are.” 

“What?” A knot begins to form in Louis’ throat. “Who are we, then?”

“Brothers.” 

_“Brothers?”_

“Brothers in the love and light of God.” 

Louis swallows the bitterness on his tongue, not yet recovered enough from his euphoria to deal with heartbreak. “You’re not—” Louis debates continuing, debates opening up a rift between them. But perhaps they are beyond that now. Perhaps no two people could go back from what they’ve just done. “You were never a brother. You were never just a friend.” Louis gets bolder with each word. “And you will _never_ be a god to me. You will always be _my Harry._ ” 

Louis feels the splatter against him. He looks down to see splotchy globs of white wetting through to his stomach and Harry still emptying, cum dripping from his slit like wax from a melting candle. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry whimpers, balling up like a hedgehog, his knees tucking to his chest even as he still leaks. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” 

“Shhh,” Louis soothes, wrapping Harry in his arms and tugging him close. Their softening bodies touch, sticky to sticky, and Louis can’t really believe the other boy climaxed from his words alone. “It’s okay, you’re okay, there’s no need to be sorry.” 

“W-wasn’t talking to you this time,” Harry sniffs, his voice strained, but he clasps Louis tight and doesn’t move his hips away. 

“I hate that you’re sorry.” Louis gathers up a corner of the sheet and sets about wiping Harry off, then himself. When he finishes he re-fastens Harry’s pants and pulls up his own boxers, dropping the ruined sheet to the floor. “I won’t tell, you know that, right? I would never betray you.” 

Harry smiles at him in answer, though it’s only a half smile, a show smile, one that holds no sincerity behind it. Still, Louis manages to fall asleep with the beauty of it pinned to the walls of his mind. Harry is in his arms. Harry has been _one_ with him, has lost his sweet virginity to the stroke of Louis’ fingers, the width of his cock. That knowledge is enough to keep the racing questions and worries from clouding up his mind. 

Louis awakes to coldness. He’s alone in the bunk. The soft snoring around him reveals that it’s late at night, possibly early morning, and everyone else has come to bed. Harry must have gone up for some air. A cold brush of fear sweeps over him as he thinks of the healer alone on deck; what if the media rent canoes, what if his followers try to kidnap him, what if… 

And so he gets up and tiptoes up the stairs. The boat sways gently on the water, and a half moon illuminates his path. Careful of the creaking boards, he walks the perimeter of the deck, fingers ghosting along the railing, expecting to meet with Harry at the next turn. He never does. 

“Harry?” Louis tries to keep the panic out of his voice. “Harry, where’ve you gone?” 

But only gentle waves lap against the hull in answer. He glances in the steering cabin, but it’s empty as well. Perhaps someone _has_ come in the night and whisked Harry away. Louis has just decided to start waking the others and mounting a full scale search when something white catches his eye far out on the lake. A swan perhaps, though it looks much larger than a bird. In the moonlight his eyes find it hard to focus, and he strains against the dark as the form floats closer. 

Not a swan, for the whiteness billows and flutters like a sail. Louis grips the railing tightly and leans out over the water, trying to get a clearer view. When his eyes adjust to the reflection of moon and water, he nearly falls in. 

Harry is wrapped in their ruined bedsheet, gliding towards him across the surface of the little lake, moonlight bouncing off of him like a third celestial stop for the travels of sunlight. Louis freezes with his mouth hanging open, eyes fixed on the soles of Harry’s feet as they step one in front of the other, stabilized on the water’s surface as if it were ice and not meters-deep liquid capable of swallowing a human body whole. 

Harry reaches the boat and climbs up its side, hauling himself over the railing as Louis continues to stare. 

“Don’t be afraid, Lou,” he whispers. But Louis is past fear. 

“You were walking. On water.” 

“He wanted to talk to me. Alone. I needed to go to shore.” Harry fiddles with the sheet, tugging it tighter across his shoulders as he shudders against the wind. 

“And what did He say?” Louis knows already, though, he knows by the look on Harry’s face, by the distance between them, by the hollow craving in the healer’s eyes. 

“Wonderful things. Ways I can save the world. It’s my fate to heal, to bring peace, to help people, however I can. It would be selfish to stop.” Harry’s head droops. 

“You’re never going to touch me again, are you,” Louis’ states, his hands balling into fists involutionary as his body tenses like a spring. 

“Lou it’s… with me, touch is _sacred,_ can’t you understand that?” 

Harry takes a step back as Louis moves forwards, as if he already knows that Louis’ response will lacerate him. “Why can you give your sacred touch to the whole world, but not me?” 

Harry swallows and shakes his head. He looks sickly, pale, like it’s killing him to hold this line. “I should get back to bed, Lou. I’ll see you in the morning?” 

“In the morning.” Louis bites his lip to keep from screaming. “Okay, Harry. Alright. In the morning.” 

He watches his best friend—the boy who has broken his heart twice now, the boy who can stop his nightmares, the boy who has raised the dead—descend the yacht stairs into darkness. Louis doesn’t bother following him. Without Harry’s touch he can’t trust himself to not wake the others; it will be better for him to sleep under the moon. Heaven knows he did so enough times in the jungle.


	7. Transfiguration

Of course it’s Zayn who first notices Louis sleeping apart from the rest. They moved on, ramshackled bus and all, after the initial media blitz calmed down, and now find themselves in the warm lower half of the country, the cornfields and endless grasslands replaced by sticky humidity and giant bugs. He and Zayn are smoking at the back of the bus, letting their hands trail stringy clouds out the open window, when Zayn broaches the subject. 

“You two have a falling out?” As ever, Zayn’s face remains nonchalant, giving no hint of judgement or scrutiny, his question as normal sounding as if he’d asked about the state of the weather. 

Louis takes a pull before answering. “No, not really.” 

“You just really like the outdoors, then.” 

Gauging how much to reveal takes Louis a moment. “You see who he is, Zayn, what he does.” 

Zayn laughs, smoke pulsing from his nose like a train’s chimney. “I can see that he’s in love with you.”

This catches Louis off guard. “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

“I’m not. He’s pushed you away, hasn’t he? It’s because he cares too much. Heaven forbid the god-child develop real feelings.” Zayn takes another drag. “You know, maybe heaven _has_.” 

Louis goes through the motions of normalcy, but his movements begin to feel slow, weighted; he doesn’t sleep well at night, partially because of his self-isolation to the outdoors—meaning the ground and a commandeered blanket—but mostly due to the terrors that wake him in the early morning, drenching him in sweat, setting his heart racing and making him smell memories in the dawn shadows. 

Even in his diminished state, though, Louis can grasp the toll being exacted on all of them. The media hound Harry wherever they stop, and it becomes impossible to keep cameras away from the melee. The crowds continue to grow, and gatherings that used to be five and six hours become twelve and fifteen. Harry heals and speaks and heals again. Soon signs emblazoned with his words begin to appear in the crowds; people have started mining his little fables for slogans. 

At the end of every day Harry shuts down, hardly saying two words to his devoted friends, balling himself up on one of the bus’s old couches with his cache of crystals clutched close and falling asleep. Taylor tends him the most, making sure he eats food and drinks water, her insistence on his humanity a refreshing break from how most of the others continue to view him. Liam, for instance, keeps his distance, reverence having taken root in his face ever since the little boy rose from the dead. And as time passes Louis can hardly blame them all, can hardly blame Eleanor for staring at Harry more than talking to him, or Niall for becoming ever more quiet—even leaving his guitar in its case most days— or Aiden and Nick for always claiming the job of outermost crowd security. 

A strange tide has turned, Louis can tell. It’s an odd evolution, the one from presumed cult to celebrity attraction, one that is more determined by popularity and media opinion than anything else. All of a sudden Harry’s teachings are printed into makeshift books sold by devotees around the world. He has become the face of the peace movement, the unwitting mascot to a thousand protests across the country whose members base their validity on his miraculous powers. People have started to notice, to listen, and not just the people that have always shown interest; Harry’s reach has penetrated the core of America, and half the outside world besides, and as fame engulfs his name, the watershed moment happens and Harry is elevated from human to myth. Whispers start, rumors swirl, and soon Harry belongs less to himself than he does the _story_ of himself.

Zayn doesn’t withdraw. Instead, as the cosmic shift occurs, he becomes ever more agitated. After each new record crowd Zayn will join Louis behind the bus and they’ll both slouch on the grass, smoking blunts and gazing up at the hot haze of summer sky to discuss the day’s events. Louis finds his own lonely torture somewhat soothed by his roommate’s presence. 

“Did you hear him today?”

“Wasn’t paying attention. Trying to organize the line.” Louis borrows the blunt from between Zayn’s fingers.

“They’re really listening to his message now. They weren’t before.” 

“Seems like you’re not happy about that.”

“Mmm,” Zayn purses his lips. “I just never imagined the message would ever _matter,_ you know?” 

“I honestly don’t.” 

“I never thought he’d have this much influence. I thought we were traveling the world to heal people’s demons not… raise the dead.” 

Louis chuckles. “When did it all spiral out of control.” 

“You tell me. He’s talked to you about things, at least. We’re all in the dark. It’s rare to have a movement that couples both promise and delivery, Louis. The things he can do are just,” Zayn motions blankly towards the sun, “They’re magic. Having that kind of power at the disposal of a social movement would be world-changing. But until now I didn’t think anyone would want more than the magic. Look at them, though! Signs and books and fuck-all else. His magic has led them to _listen_.” 

“Well it’s all God’s fault, I can tell you that,” Louis says, bitterness creeping into his tone.

“Usually is.” 

“He wants Harry to save the world. Bring peace and shit.” 

Zayn takes the blunt back. The wind begins to blow, tossing the black haired man’s fringe into his eyes. Zayn shakes his head to free his lashes. “Rather inefficient way to do it, don’t you think?” 

Louis hasn’t thought about the efficiency of God’s apparent plan. “Explain.” 

“S’just…” Zayn coughs and stretches one leg out into the soft grass. “If God’s powerful enough to raise the dead, and he wants world peace, and he’s trying to spread love, why not take away _everyone’s_ pain. Why not smite injustice, strike down the world leaders, I don’t know. Why send a boy out to heal only those he can touch? It’s as if God’s mercy is a market commodity, and he’s strangling it. Like diamonds. Shouldn’t that not be the case?” 

Louis watches the wind making waves out of the tall southern grass, raking it one direction then the next, swirling it into clumps, dividing it out like the spread of a bomb blast. “I’ve not thought much about that, honestly. I never even believed in a god before… this.” 

Zayn smiles. “Same. I always thought Harry meant, you know, the forces of nature, the good in the universe, that kinda thing. But now I think his God has an agenda. In fact,” Zayn begins to stand, dusting off the back side of his jeans, “Maybe that’s what disturbs me most about this whole thing. Harry’s God seems far too human.” 

Louis sits alone for a long while after Zayn has gone, contemplating, listening, straining against the birdsong and random sounds of small mammals to try and decipher the wind. If he could speak to God too, perhaps he could ask. Perhaps he could ask how Harry is supposed to cure all of the world with his mere two hands, ask how it will end, how Harry will ever live a normal life.

*

“Lou?” 

Louis turns from gathering the stakes and ropes for the receiving line. It’s rare that Harry speaks to them before a meeting these days, as he prefers to sip water laced with honey and meditate alone, his body burdened down by seemingly ever more crystals. 

“Yeah?” Even still, he goes to him in a moment, no dignity remaining in his devotion. He curses his broken heart. 

“Can you help me, um, get up?” Harry motions to the top of the bus, his prefered platform. 

Louis gives him a look, but nods his head. “Sure.” 

“Problem is I can’t really see right now.” 

Louis drops the stakes and takes Harry’s face between his hands, unthinking, on instinct. “You can’t _see_?” 

“Lou…” 

Louis lets go, his face flushing alongside Harry’s. 

“It’s coming back now.” Harry makes to climb up the bus unaided. 

“Wait,” Louis catches himself just in time before he grabs Harry again; instead he bodily blocks his path. “Tell me what you mean.” His voice carries an authority he hasn’t used since the warzone. 

“Sometimes when I’m praying I, uh,” Harry blinks at him, his eyes all green and no pupil, “Everything goes white. It’s hard to see for a while after.” 

Louis aches to gather Harry in his arms. “It didn’t used to be like that, did it?”

Harry shakes his head slowly. “No, it’s been… growing.” 

“Since you sent me away.” 

Harry jolts and his jaw goes stiff. “I _didn’t_ , you’re still right here, Lou.” 

Recklessly Louis reaches out and tucks a stray curl behind Harry’s ear, their skins grazing for a moment. Harry starts to blink again, and his pupils grow to normal size. He begins clamoring up the bus, his long legs making strange angles in the flowy pants beneath his robe. Louis senses more than hears Zayn come up beside him. 

“He’s a jealous God,” Zayn mutters under his breath. “Come on, Lou, I’ll help you keep an eye on him today, make sure he’s alright. The others can pitch the ropes.”

People come like shells washing ashore in a storm, random, in clusters, just a few at first, then so many that they pile over each other. Harry stands patiently until they’ve packed close, the gathered thousands as silent as a mass of humanity can be. Though his voice should only carry several hundred feet at most, Harry’s words can be heard throughout the open space, and as he begins Zayn pulls Louis down beside him on the bus hood, and they perch there, watching Harry like birds with legs akimbo atop their painted nest. 

“My friends, God is holding open his arms for you today, waiting to embrace you with his love, waiting to—”

“Teacher! Heal my girl, heal my girl!” A voice cries out, and a woman hoists a toddler towards the bus, her arms shaking with the effort. Immediately Niall goes to the woman and tries to explain that she needs to wait until Harry has finished speaking, that there will be a time, and a line, to heal her child, but she persists, her cries seconded by her now disturbed baby. Louis feels a vibration in his tailbone and turns just in time to see Harry climbing down from his perch, his arms outstretched towards the woman. 

“Niall, Niall,” he says, his forehead creased with concern, “Let the little one come to me, don’t stop her, here,” and Harry reaches out and takes the toddler from her mother’s arms. The crowd starts to titter amongst itself, some listeners jostling into position in case the healings begin now. 

But Harry has eyes only for the child. He stares at her for a few moments before addressing her mother. “She’s sick,” he declares, a statement rather than a question.

“In her blood. She’s been ill since birth. Teacher, please, if only you say the word she’ll be healed.” 

“You have a lot of faith, my sister.” Harry covers the little girl’s forehead with his hand for a moment; when he pulls his arm away, the child freezes, then all at once she begins searching for her mother, turning her head every which way and squealing with happiness, the pallor that hung about her before suddenly lifted. 

The mother begins to cry. “You are a wonder among us,” she sobs as the little girl settles back into her arms and the crowd begins to clap. Harry shushes them with a hand as he retreats back towards the bus, where, instead of climbing to the top, he finds a seat on the hood opposite Louis and Zayn. 

“Please understand, my friends. This is not about me. God’s love for this world is so great that he sent his son, and whoever believes in this peace we are building will have a new life in His light.” 

Harry pauses as a man steps forward, his hand raised as if at a lecture. “Teacher, are we never supposed to be unpeaceful, then? What about the rioters in the city over there, been breakin’ windows and settin’ fires last two days, sayin’ they want a new world too. Should they renounce violence and join you, teacher?” 

Zayn tenses beside Louis, his ankles digging into the wheel well of the bus. 

“I am the way that the light of God has provided, my brother. Those who wish to partake in the love that I offer are always welcome. Of course we will face opposition; consider it an honor to be targeted by the corrupt factions of this world, for they do not go after those who pose no threat to their ways. We represent a power much greater than the heat of fire or the sting of shattered glass. Whoever wants to bring the greatest change must first humble themself and be a servant.” 

The crowd applauds, but Louis is enfolded in the utter silence that extends out from Zayn in blistering waves. 

“Tell me, _Teacher_ ,” Zayn asks, rising to come and stand before Harry, “Does that mean we are to stand peaceably by while injustice occurs? That we must wait for your peaceful light and love to enlighten the _oppressors?”_

Harry’s eyebrows furrow, confused, as if Zayn just asked the most obvious question in the world. “It is _God’s_ place to dole out justice, Zayn. Whoever is perfect here, let them throw the first brick.”

The two men lock eyes for a moment before Zayn turns away, his footfalls light as he passes Louis and disappears into the crowd. Harry continues speaking undeterred. 

Louis doesn’t hear the rest of the message; it travels through his ears without being processed into meaning, because something in the pit of his stomach has begun to prickle, and he fights against the instinct to run after Zayn, to request an explanation for his behavior.  
The healings last throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Though the crowd thins, many stay long after the meeting ends, as is tradition, setting up tents and dancing around bonfires and strumming their guitars. Louis is convinced that Zayn has only sought a place of temporary solitude, but when he can’t spot his roommate as night falls, he begins to worry.

After Harry finally retreats into the bus, the line of ill and injured gone, Louis heads off to question Liam. 

The burly man is pulling up stakes, humming a tune. 

“You seen Zayn?” Louis asks, trying to keep an air of nonchalance in his voice. 

“Not since this morning, why?” 

“You didn’t see him leave, then.” Louis treads carefully. Maybe he only imagined Zayn’s abrupt departure indicated a foul mood. 

“No?” Liam stops his task and looks around, trying to spot Zayn with a quick glance. 

“Look,” Louis makes up his mind even before the words tumble out of his mouth, “I think he might have gone into town for supplies or something. I’m going to go find him.”

“Wouldn’t bother, Lou, it’s almost dark and he knows we’re leaving tomorrow. He always gets back before morning.” 

“Gets back?” The prickling in Louis’ stomach grows again. 

“Sure, he usually steps out at night, haven’t you noticed?” 

Louis hasn’t noticed. He hasn’t noticed a lot of things. 

“Right. I’m still, uh, I’m still gonna go see if I can find him, alright? Don’t leave without me.” 

Liam nods and returns to his task, shrugging. 

Louis catches a car on the highway and hitches a ride to the city several miles away. He soon finds himself under manilla street lights, the sounds of honking cars growing louder as he gets nearer the city’s core. Neon store signs are dark, and a plume of smoke rises, orange and pink, reflecting the fire below it. Louis hurries towards the noise, though it reminds him of Vietnam, though with each siren that passes him, its pitch warping, he has to actively count his breaths so as to not fall into a full panic. 

Ten blocks in he finds a detail of police blocking his way, their long rifles held like flag poles, their white, round helmets gleaming like half-pearls in the streetlights. 

“Sir,” one officer says, approaching Louis as he makes to cross the next street, “You can’t go that way.”

Louis plays dumb, figuring it’s his only option. “My mom lives a few blocks down, I’m just headed home.” 

“You live in this neighborhood, do you?” The cop smirks at him, turning his head and motioning to several of his buddies to join him on the joke. “Your mom look like you?” 

“Better,” Louis says, not missing a beat. The pulse of constant anxiety inside him begins to still, to channel itself into the venue it knows best, the thing it has been made for: fighting. Louis braces himself, his stance wide. “My friend came into town tonight.”

“Stupid thing to do, this has been building for days. Now we’ve got a fire over on 6th, and five storefront’s have been smashed in. Think your friend knows anything about that?” 

Louis meets the officer’s eyes with unblinking surety. “I’m sure he doesn’t.” 

“Look,” another cop steps up to Louis, his manner less tense than the first. “Marines, yeah?” 

Louis swallows, then nods. 

“We’re about to round these commies up for the clinker, what’s your friend look like? I lost my brother to those gooks. In Tet.”

Louis’ stomach churns at the slur. “I was there too.”

“Yeah? These fuckin’ rats have no idea. Need a fuckin’ lesson. You better find your friend quick, things are gonna get bad tonight.” 

Louis nods and the cops step aside, letting him pass. Try as he might, Louis can’t block out the banter that continues behind him, the retreating sound of vivid brutal fantasies playing out upon the police’s prey. He’s nearly made it to the first fire, burning upwards like a beacon in the night, when the _pop pop pop_ of bullets fills the air, and though just moments before he had been braced for battle, the sound sets his heart rate spiking and his legs give out and he finds himself half kneeling in the gutter, clawing at the solid asphalt beneath his palms, scratching his nails down to nubs as he tries to open a hole in the concrete earth. The gunfire continues, as do the sirens, and when a chopper soars by overhead, sending a gust of loose leaves down the street, Louis loses all semblance of time and place and folds in on himself until blackness swallows him up.

*

“Louis? Lou?” 

Someone’s shaking him, but Louis can’t open his eyes for fear his nightmares will prove real and he will see jungle around him, mud under him, a bright sky above with air so clear even the addition of sunlight creates a haze. 

“Hey, it’s okay Lou, it’s Niall, come on, wake up man,” the shaking progresses to light slapping, and Louis gingerly opens one eye. Niall’s voice doesn’t belong in Vietnam.

Next moment a sharp whistle pierces the air. “Found him! Over here!” 

Louis shivers. The sidewalk has pocked his skin with the indent of cement and his body is cold and sore and stiff. The sun is up, but just barely. 

“Zayn,” Louis chatters out, the intent of his mission coming abruptly back to his mind. Zayn was in there, in the midst of the riot, could have been injured, could have been—

“We’re looking. We’ve been scouring the city for both of you all night.”

“How did you know?”

Niall gives him a look that says he should know better than to ask such things. “Harry.”

“Right.” Louis tries smoothing at his hair. It proves useless. 

Niall helps him up. By the time Louis regains proper feeling in his legs, they’ve been joined by Eleanor and Aiden, both of them looking the worse for wear from lack of sleep. Eleanor wraps Louis in a warm hug, her arms gentle, reassuring. 

“The others are already at the police station,” she says softly, apologetically, as if she knows Louis’ reaction will be one of shock. 

“He’s not…”

“No. They’ve taken him into custody is all. He was in one of the groups they rounded up last night.” 

Louis nods. “Okay, let’s go.” 

The walk takes longer than Louis’ patience can last. By the time they reach the station, a brick building with ten shallow steps and small windows, his growing worry has turned to fear. This is not assuaged by the rifle-armed riot police standing outside, looking far too nonchalant about the state of their power. 

Harry and the rest are there already, standing peaceably on the sidewalk, and the police seem to be paying them little mind. Liam walks up as they make their way over, his finger held securely over his lips. 

“What’s he doing?” Niall whispers in response, nodding his head in Harry’s direction. 

“We’re not entirely sure. He’s just been standing there still since we arrived. Keeps opening and closing his eyes.” 

They don’t have to wonder for long, because moments later Zayn emerges from the station followed by a line of other protestors, some bloodied, most with torn clothes. The guards likewise pay _them_ no mind as they walk past, not even turning their heads. Zayn strides briskly towards Harry even as the others scatter and disappear into the dawn. His clothes are rife with ash and spotted with blood and he has a nasty gash across his neck, as if someone had tried and failed to do off with his head.

He stops in front of them all, his chest heaving in a thin, controlled way, then turns his back. 

“Zayn,” Harry says as he reaches out, clutching the other man’s hand. Zayn whirles, tears flickering in his eyes. Harry places his other palm gently along Zayn’s neck, the contrasts of their warm and cool skin tones a ghostly pastel pallet in the morning light. The gash closes up, a pink layer of fresh skin in its place. 

“Let me go, Harry.” 

“You idiot, he’s fucking _healing_ you,” Nick curses, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“I don’t want to do this here, not like this.” Zayn says this to Harry, but he turns to Louis at the end, their eyes meeting for the first time. 

“Do what?” Louis steps forward between them, parting Harry’s hand from Zayn’s. He clasps his old friend’s shoulders and tries to decipher the hurt in the man’s damp brown eyes. 

“He freed me. The cell door opened, and I walked out. They didn’t see, none of them saw. He closed their eyes.” Zayn is trembling now, vibrating like a string out of sequence with the rest of the universe. 

“You’re not grateful?” This from Bleta, who is clinging to Liam, clearly trying to soothe him into not joining the fray. 

“ _Grateful_.” Zayn begins to laugh then, a terrible, hollow laugh, the kind that sounds more like the screams of a dying lamb than joy. Louis shakes him.

“Zayn, what’s happened?” 

“That’s it, isn’t it? _Grateful_.” He pulls away from Louis, stepping back into the empty street and spreading his arms wide, turning in a circle to address the invisible crowds around them. “Prepare the way! Prepare the way for the white savior of the world! Hear this everyone, he heals the sick and raises the dead and fixes the world with _love_. If you’re lucky. If you’re his _friend_ , if you can get close enough to touch him, if his god can win your devotion by bribery, if his disciples stay white enough the police let them live, if…” Zayn hesitates and looks to Louis, “If he’s in love with your roommate.” 

Liam breaks from Bleta’s hold now. “Zayn, please, you’re tired.” 

“Tired?” Zayn twists away from Liam’s reaching arms. “Yes, I’m tired. You speak of love, Harry. But you don’t know the meaning of the world. Your love has no consequences. Your love is _safe_. Where are you when the dogs come at the race marches, when the fire hoses knock people down like chattel? Why do you offer your _love_ even to those who beat us, those who deny us the basic rights of being treated as HUMANS!” Zayn is yelling now, his eyes alight with something Louis has rarely seen outside a warzone. “You say love will save us, you say no one is blameless, no one can throw the first brick, but how can love be an equalizer when it is only weaponized against us, when loving our oppressor, being a _servant_ only strengthens them in their abuses against us?” 

Harry hasn’t moved; he watches Zayn with bright eyes, his reaction impossible to tell from his placid face. Zayn approaches him, body twitching with the nervous energy of release.

“You betray me with your universal love, Harry. You betray the world. Tell me, are you the real son of God?” 

He doesn’t give Harry a chance to answer. Zayn turns heel and walks away, his body silhouetted by the morning sunlight making its way along the streets, dodging buildings and skimming around corners in eclipses of light. Soon the black haired man has disappeared into the city’s maw. 

Harry breaks the silence. “We should go.” 

They weave their way back to where Niall has parked the bus, all of them quiet, mournful, like the aura of the burnt city, Liam weeping silent tears into his shirt sleeve. Louis finds it hard to climb the three little steps of the vehicle; his war instincts have been aroused by Zayn’s passion and he feels a ripping inside of himself, as if he were leaving a fallen comrade behind. And Marines don’t do that. He has almost begun to name the struggle in his heart when Harry speaks gently. 

“You’re coming, aren’t you, Lou?” 

He takes in Harry’s sunken eyes, the slight crease between his brows, the rawness of his upper lip where he’s gnawed it. Perhaps Harry has never told him anything about himself with words either, perhaps they have both always relied on subtext, like the one now: _please say you’re not leaving me too._

“I’m coming.” 

Louis boards the bus and closes the little door behind him. 

*

A week passes, seven days that drag on like a loadstone around Louis’ neck. He keeps mostly to himself, quietly hunkering in the back of the bus, making the rounds of chores and setting up for the meetings, but his appetite dwindles, and were it not for Taylor’s watchful care he’d have forgotten to eat altogether. A knot has settled in the pit of his stomach and no amount of reasoning can get it to go away. Zayn’s words eat at him, corroding the veneer of the peace movement he’s surrounded by. 

What bothers Louis most though, what convicts him in the midst of Harry’s sermons, what nags him as Harry touches and heals and touches and heals again, is that he _knows_. He has _always known_. 

His naivety as an eighteen year old enlistee vanished after the first day in those jungles, if it had ever really existed, if it hadn’t just been a hastily glazed on varnish of patriotism and peer pressure and obligation and bravado. No, Louis knew soon enough the wonders of the war machine, the helpless feel of being a cog in its wheel, the ultimate betrayal of knowing your life was forfeit for a meter of earth. But he couldn’t _know_ it then; in the midst of hell you swear it’s a bonfire, for nothing ruins the odds of survival like hopeless reality. Louis and his platoon, they were _important_ , they were principled, they were duty bound, loyal, moral _heros_. To think anything else was to succumb to death. 

But he knows. He has always _known_ that what Harry speaks of is a myth, a nicety for those who already enjoy such illusions. But it felt so blissful to believe! To put his trust in the power that Harry so clearly employs and to rest in the knowledge that all he has to do is exactly _nothing_. He doesn’t need to fight any more wars. And he’s clung to that, ignoring what he knows of the world, because he wants this existence, this peace. He wants Harry.

Once Louis begins looking at the eyes of those who dance around the bonfires at night, those who fuck under the stars and sing and draw posters of love and wear feathers and beads and colorful headbands, he begins to see only uniforms, very like suits in church or pins on a general. These people are no different, really, no different at all. 

The night he decides to confront Harry is a full moon, or very near to full, for moonlight illuminates the whole field they’re camped in, drowning out even the waning fires that dot the landscape. The others are already asleep, or off in various groups partaking in nightly activities, so the bus is silent. Louis creeps on, narrowly avoiding stepping on Liam’s finger as he lies draped over a lumpy beanbag. 

He reaches Harry’s little pallet soon enough and crouches down, suddenly unsure of how to wake the healer without touch. He needn't have worried. 

“I’m coming,” Harry whispers, uncurling from his crumpled state and rubbing at his eyes. His curls hang soft and long, and his lips are swollen from nervous biting. He takes Louis’ breath away, this boy, this god. 

Harry follows him out of the bus, his movements slow and sleep heavy. When they’ve emerged into the moonlight Louis gathers his courage. 

“I need to talk to you.” 

“I know. I felt it.” Harry licks his raw lips. “Let’s climb that hill? Get closer to the moon. Come on, Lou.” There’s excitement in his voice, anticipation.

So enchanted is Louis with Harry’s tone, jovial, playful, like when they were kids, that he nearly takes his hand. Nearly. 

They ascend the hillock at a slow but steady pace, the tall grass hiding little burrows and ruts that hinder their progress. The slight breeze grows into a wind, and by the time they crest the top, the air is alive with a hum, the moon as bright as the sun, and moths and bats and all manner of air swimmers dance in silhouettes against the sky.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Harry leans his head back and closes his eyes. “Can’t you feel it running through you, Lou? The _magic._ ” 

“Harry.” Louis plants his hands on his hips and inhales. “It’s all just a dream.” 

Harry opens his eyes but doesn’t look away from the stars. “Then it’s a good dream. A beautiful dream. A powerful dream.” 

“It’s a drop in the bucket. For every person you heal how many thousands, _millions_ more die? If God meant you to save the world He—”

“He does and I _am_ ,” Harry protests, but he stutters around the words, and Louis half believes he can hear Harry’s voice falter. 

“You know, Harry. You have to know that Zayn’s right.” 

Harry holds up his arms, his palms spread to the heavens, “You don’t understand. You haven’t _seen,_ if only you could see His glory, His beauty, oh Lou… He’s like nothing else.” 

The wind blows Louis’ fringe in his eyes. Shoving his hair back he blinks up to the sky, feeling brave. “Then show me too!” He yells. 

At his request Harry’s eyes go wide. Louis half expects nothing to happen, but then his legs give out beneath him and his mouth falls open because Harry starts to _glow,_ his face emitting the radiance of a star, so bright Louis has to cover his eyes for he can feel the light start to burn him. Harry’s robes shine with the whiteness of a fire’s center, too clean, too colorless, hurtful to imagine much less remember. As the moon fades into nothingness, Harry floats upwards, his outstretched body a channel to the beyond, a burning orb of energy that threatens to combust the very grass upon which Louis huddles. He hangs in the sky, another sun, as the wind howls around them, a vortex of sound and fury, snapping the fabric on Harry’s body like whips to a chariot. An awful ringing grows louder with each passing moment, the blurry sound of cymbals nearly unhinging every bone in Louis’ body. 

Just when he can take no more, when the roaring and the light and the heat and the air become too much, everything goes black. 

Louis clutches at his ears, feeling for their existence. He blinks for an eternity before his eyes adjust to the dull illumination of his surroundings. Harry lays crumpled a few feet away, his limbs pale and draped in an ungainly way as if he dropped from some height. 

Disregarding everything, Louis crawls to the healer and pulls Harry into his arms, smoothing back the curls from his forehead and petting at his damp skin. “Harry, Harry,” he croaks out, his voice hoarse, nearly gone, “Come back to me Harry, come back…” 

Gradually Harry opens his eyes, but they remain trackless, roving in patterns that chart constellations and not the boundaries of Louis’ face above him. “Did you see Him, Lou? His light?” Harry twitches, then shivers. “His love, did you feel Him call to you, Lou? He was speaking to me, promises and… so beautiful, His peace, His love…”

“Shhh, shhh,” Louis’ vision blurs as tears fill his eyes. “Sleep, sweetheart, you’re so tired.” 

“You saw Him, you saw Him, Lou?” 

“Yes, I saw.” 

“Then you understand now.” A smile blooms on Harry’s face as he closes his eyes, content.  
Louis does understand, at last. He cries as he falls asleep in the grass, Harry’s breathing steady beside him. 

Fingers are in his hair when he awakes. He tries to remember the details of his dream, but he knows he’s been screaming, and that tells him enough. 

“Lou, your nightmares.” 

Louis lets his ribcage settle into a regular rhythm before he answers. The moon has sunk low on the horizon, it’s translucency an indication of the sunrise to their backs. The grass is laden with dew, and they’re both wet with it, the moisture making their clothes cling to their slightly blue flesh. 

“They’ve been getting worse,” Louis confesses, propping himself up on one elbow to breathe easier. 

“You never told me.” 

“You never asked. You sent me away, remember.” 

Harry hangs his head. “Wish you wouldn’t say it like that.” 

Louis falls back to the wet earth and sucks in oxygen as he stretches his arms above his head. “Sorry to wake you. Though I’m a bit surprised you weren’t dead to the world after all that.” 

Harry responds by bending over Louis’ torso and fiddling with the zipper of his jeans. Before Louis can gasp in surprise or bat his arm away in indignation, Harry has got his pants down and slipped him free of his boxers. With firm hands Harry wordlessly presses Louis’ shoulders down into the grass. 

“Harry...” Louis gives a sudden shiver. As Harry’s fist closes around him time falls into a loop, suspended, indistinct, and all Louis knows is that the pulsing energy of Harry’s palm now courses through him, beating into his blood, into his flesh, his bones, his aura, and though no friction helps him along, his stomach drops and flips and dives, his groin seizes up, and in Harry’s gentle grasp he hardens, rising like leavened bread. Beat after beat of energy surges towards his heart, quickening his breath even as a heavy, calming fog settles over his body.  
“Your touch,” he whispers, so near to being undone, so scared of fraying into a million pieces before the man he loves. “You said it was sacred.” 

Harry places his other hand atop Louis’ chest, resting it in the niche between his protruding ribcage, against the soft, tender dip closest to his heart. His lips part softly as he leans down; Louis closes his eyes, knowing what will happen, yet unprepared. 

Wet and warmth and pressure—slick and slide and noises that break the sound barrier of Louis’ mind—render silent the demons that haunt him. Louis can hear only the suck of Harry’s mouth, the breaths he takes through flared nostrils, the little _clomps_ that sound like pudding dripping on china when Louis’ hardness meets the back of Harry’s throat. 

It lasts forever. Louis can’t measure the moments, for each beat of his heart is another wave of euphoria. Eventually the pulsing in his aura and the throbbing in his cock align, and he cries out as he comes. With the pleasure is pain also, pain like he hasn’t felt since the field, for Harry draws cum from the wounded, corroding vats of fear inside of him, coaxes from his slit not only salty white but the mud and blood and horror and rot and hopelessness of the jungle, things that have taken root inside Louis and festered there, and these toxins burn against the swollen pink of his cockhead as they leak from his body to Harry’s throat. Louis knows his orgasm tastes not salty, but putried, yet Harry sucks him, swallows him, pulling poison from a wound, and Louis can only tremble at the pain and allow himself to be cleansed.

A glaze of tears blocks his vision when Louis finally opens his eyes. He blinks, causing rivulets to scurry down his temples. 

“Why’d you do that again,” he whispers, the blush of satiation still burning his face. 

“Nothing else has worked,” Harry replies, his lips shiny, puffy. 

“Worked?” Louis sits up, his body protesting at the movement.

“I can heal the whole world, I can cure every single person that I touch. But what use is it, what use is any of it, if I can’t fix my _best friend_...” 

“You’ve been trying to heal me?”

“Oh Lou.” Harry swipes under his nose. “I’ve tried every day, every time I’m near you. But I can’t. Your aura is still all pain and hurt and memory, and it only brightens when I—when I—” Harry hangs his head and bites his lip. “Do this.” 

Louis shakes his head, a dark laughter beginning to ferment in his chest. Several sharp chuckles escape him. “You’ve sucked me off to _heal_ me? Not because—” Louis interrupts himself, flopping backwards to the ground. “No. Nevermind. You should stop, though.” 

Harry falls beside him, his forehead creased in confusion. “It wasn’t good enough?” 

“No it…” Louis hesitates at the prospect of putting life to his thoughts, of acknowledging to Harry that he has come to understand. “It’ll never work.” 

Harry lays his head on Louis’ shoulder. “Don’t say that. I promised I would find a way. I’ll keep trying.” 

“You can’t, don’t you see.” With a shaky breath Louis begins to comb through Harry’s curls, loathe to wound him, but also angry, angry at everything Harry is, everything Harry has been crafted to become. “I don’t need sex. It only works a little because it’s the closest thing to... Harry, you can’t cure me with your mouth.” 

“Then what, Lou?” Harry wraps an arm around him and squeezes, and Louis nearly doesn’t say his next words. 

“You can’t give what would heal me. You’ve already given it to someone else.” 

Harry lies still against him a moment, then rises up on his elbows to stare down at Louis, his mouth gaping, his eyes shining with tears. 

“You—you—”

“How can you read the auras of the whole fucking world and still be so fucking _blind_ , Harry. How have you never… all these years. And then I come back from hell, and who’s snatched you away from me but _heaven_ itself. If God saved me from that place He has no right to the name, because it hurts more lying here next to you now, knowing that He occupies the place I should have in your heart.” Louis realizes he’s openly crying, his words garbled and thick. “Your God is my devil.” 

Harry wipes at Louis’ cheeks, smoothing away his tears. “You love me?” 

“Yes.” Louis swallows. “Yes, I love you. And it doesn’t matter.” 

“Of course it does.” 

“Kiss me,” Louis gulps out, taking Harry’s hand in his. “Kiss me, then.” 

Harry pulls away, his face contorting in a new type of agony. “I made vows, Lou, I—I—on the mountain, when He—when—”

“You see?” Louis rolls over, unable to look at the healer any longer. “He has your heart. He’s left me nothing.”

“Lou!” Harry falls on him, his whole body heaving as he wraps Louis in his limbs and clings to him, tightly, fiercely, as if he can bind the universe together with such a grasp. 

“I don’t want your pity, I don’t want your mouth or your hands, I don’t want your _healing_ , and I don’t want your _mercy_ Harry, I don’t—” Louis squirms free of him, his words like a solvent to Harry’s grasp, “I don’t want _bits_ of you, whatever leftovers He doesn’t claim, I want _YOU_ , I want your fucking heart, I want your _soul_.” Louis stands from the grass to greet the rising sun, not turning around as he says his final peace, “But you belong to God.” 

With a laden heart Louis makes himself walk down the hill. He hears weeping behind him, but he doesn’t turn.


	8. The Temple

After only one day Louis’ nightmares become waking terrors. Alone and with only the clothes on his back, he wanders the city streets, his mind blank, his heart numb, hoping that by some miracle of luck he’ll find Zayn. It’s three days before this happens, three days of combing through trash cans and huddling against doorways at night. When he finally falls into his roommate’s arms, Louis is in no fit state to explain, he just clings to Zayn and cries, apologizing every other sob. Zayn says nothing, just holds him under the streetlights, sat on the gum-spotted, dirty curb, until Louis’ tears turn to words. 

“What use is any of it,” he snuffles into Zayn’s shoulder, his tears and snot freely staining the other man’s shirt. 

“Don’t ask me things you already know, Lou. You wouldn’t be here if you really thought that.”

“I’m so tired,” Louis moans, and he means it in every possible way. 

“Me too, Lou.” 

“I was ready for paradise,” he adds in a whisper. Zayn leans down and kisses his temple, his lips hot, like a brand, a seal. He keeps them there as Louis continues. “How do I go on, knowing I’ve shot all the wrong enemies. I thought this was liberation, but God’s just another general, isn’t he?” 

“It’s easier to go along with the lies, Lou. You feel crazy realizing the truth.”

Louis finds Zayn’s hand and clenches it. He needs flesh and beating blood beneath his fingertips, he needs to know he’s alive, because inside he feels so very not. 

“You didn’t… you haven’t done what I’ve done. They were _kids,_ Zayn, just kids, and they knew they’d die, and they fought us anyway, because it was their _home_ , and they were trying to make things better and we just—we had so much more than them, these skinny children, and still they fought us and—” Louis can see the faces he’s hidden in the depths of his heart, those final masks of departing life. He could draw each one with perfect detail. 

“ _You’re just a kid_ ,” Zayn interrupts, squeezing Louis’ hand back. “You’re barely twenty-one, Lou. You went when you were eighteen. They emptied these streets of black and brown boys, of poor boys, of stupidly brave patriotic ones. You were all too young.” He kisses Louis’ temple again, mumbling against his hot skin, “That’s the way it always is. And no amount of peaceable marching through the streets will ever change that. No moral high ground can outweigh the desires of money and power.” 

Louis closes his eyes and lets his heart sync to the beating of Zayn’s blood. His breathing comes a little easier after a minute. 

“What chance do we stand, Zayn. We’re drops in the ocean, you and me. What can we possibly do.”

Zayn pulls back, taking Louis firmly by the shoulders and looking him square in the eyes. “Louis, don’t you understand. You can literally change _everything_.” Zayn wipes the tears from his cheeks, his thin hands gentle across Louis’ skin. “Who else holds the heart of a god?” 

Louis blinks at him a moment, realization dawning. “You want me to go _back_?”

“You’re meant to, I think.” Zayn shakes his head in wonder, “He raises the _dead_ , Louis. Think of what he could do if instead of calling people to love a God, he called them to revolution. No banking up these worldly power structures with the false promise of peace, no opiating the masses with just a little bit of magic until they’re content… Louis, if you made him see this, _that_ could change the world.” 

“But he _loves_ God.”

“Harry loves _you_. If you’re too blind to see it, at least trust me. If you stay here with us, I’ll not push you, Lou, we can use you, we can always use more, and if you want that, fine. But just imagine what you could do.”

Louis chews on the inside of his cheek. “He won’t choose me. He won’t choose this. Look at me, Zayn. Who would give up a god for some broken shit like me.” 

Zayn gives his fingers one last squeeze before letting go. “True, you’re not an all powerful being, Lou, but you’ve got something gods don’t.” Zayn pulls him up under his armpits and dusts him off, a determined gleam sparking in his eyes. “A soul.” 

*

For a month Louis stays with Zayn, following him to the planning meetings, the marches, the riots. Most in the group, like Zayn, are young people from colleges and universities. Louis’ life becomes moving from one safe house to the next, procuring food, following headlines, familiarizing himself with the country’s major political players and local authorities. It’s a riskier business than attending to Harry; there’s no talk of peace, only revolution. Slogans burn their way into his brain, and the more he learns the more he finds the status quo contemptible. A strange correlation emerges between enlistment and anarchy, both of them needing so desperately the drive and rage of survival that some days Louis can’t tell one war zone from the next; but he understands the side he’s cast his lot with now, though that choice alone feels more reactionary than initiative. 

For all the verve of the SDS, however, Louis quickly understands their shortcomings. Perhaps with a structured central authority they would have a chance, but ideologues don’t make good foot soldiers. For that, Louis thinks bitterly, you need a level of naivety and malleability that only comes with inexperience and youth; it’s a terrible irony that the very traits that made him and countless other boys into state sponsored weapons of terror are lacking in the very people who could perhaps end the hegemony of imperialism. 

It stands no chance, Louis knows, and he can call a losing war when he sees one; he’s been in Vietnam. In moments of despair, when the group morale is low and everything seems insurmountable, Zayn looks at Louis with searching eyes, asking of him the only service he has ever been fated to perform. So Louis knows he’ll go back, knows it with the surety of expecting sunrise, but for a while longer he stays with Zayn and his friends, hoping another miracle human will appear, that another god-man will emerge from their midst and do what Harry has not. 

One sunrise as they return to the safe house sans another member, Louis knows it’s time. He pulls Zayn aside, the smell of charred wood and blood clinging to his friend still. In the wet morning air he whispers,

“I can’t do anything more than try.”

Zayn embraces him, his thin, rigid body relaxing just a bit against Louis’ chest. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll see you again. We’re going to join up, remember? Soon as I do the impossible and cheat a god of his son.”

Zayn licks his lips and pulls back to look Louis in the eyes. He doesn’t blink as he searches Louis’ pupils. “If I don’t, though, see you again I mean. I’m glad to have known you, Lou.”

Louis leaves it at that. He has no more courage for goodbyes. He exits the safe house and walks down the empty streets of the early morning city and at the corner he slips a coin into the newspaper stand and picks up the morning’s headlines; only two words into the bolded typeface he knows where Harry is. 

_Capital Braces For Miracle Healer_

At the bus station Louis scrimps together the few dollars in his pocket and buys a one-way ticket to Washington D.C. 

*

Virginia blooms with heat even in the early morning; by midday, after he’s walked from the greyhound station to the National Mall, Louis’ shirt has become a grafting of second skin. He stands in the back of the crowd, watching the healings from afar, hearing Harry’s voice carry over the multitudes like it has so many times before. Instead of muddy fields Harry speaks amidst austire stone, and his words echo back, somehow lent more gravity through multiple repetitions. There’s been a shift of the crowd’s composition, from hippy kids to businessmen and professionals, and instead of riot police only mounted rangers traverse the outskirts of the gathering, as if Harry’s sermon were some kind of holiday event. The contrast of this sanctioned display with his recent life makes Louis’ stomach churn. 

When the healings start Louis gets closer, close enough to hear the discussions of those around him. The mall is packed shoulder to shoulder, and each foot closer to the stairs Louis gets comes with another patchwork of information. 

_“He healed the Speaker’s son yesterday, right in front of the Capitol. I’ve never handled such an influx of calls, I swear I thought the line would break.”_

_“When my husband heard they’d called him to give an address he thought it would be one and done, and the whole farce would be over. Sam has been following him for a while but I always agreed it was nonsense, just another snake oil salesman. But now I hear they’re bringing him to the pentagon, and to the senate! I’ll bet you anything he meets the president before the week’s out.”_

_“It’s like having our own real Superman. How long do you think before they give him a statue?”_

_“Oh who cares about his peace protesters anymore? If he can heal all the boys coming back from the front, what do his followers have to complain about? Imagine what our military could do if he can just reverse injury and death!”_

Louis makes it up the second wide concrete step before losing the will to go on. He sinks beneath the bodies standing around him and pulls his knees to his chest, panic descending. 

_You open your eyes and peek at the boy next to you, the one sharing your air and your tent. He’s got blonde hair and the sun makes his buzz cut look like gilding on his scalp. It’s the wrong color, and he smells all wrong too, his breath nothing like the heady morning breath you know so well. This is not really a surprise, for this is the wrong boy. He’s just another marine, another enlistee, another number sequence on a dog tag. He’s not Harry._

_How many times have you shared a tent with Harry, in the backyard, in the woods, down by the creek, your bodies close together but never close enough, the younger boy oblivious to the aching of your heart. You can remember yourself at fifteen, your revelation so new and terrifying you haven’t figured out how to even think of it yet, and Harry, needing your hugs, your praise, your adoration, so greedy and so naive, so oblivious to what it costs you to hold him close and not confess your overflowing heart. You can recall how those nights in the tent would begin, with Harry telling some elaborate story, and you listening, caring little for the forest animals in his cast of characters but caring everything for the boy that brought them to life._

_You can still hear Harry’s steady breathing, the snuffles he made in his sleep, the shift of his skin against the sleeping bag. You used to envy that sleeping bag, used to hate the ease with which it wrapped itself around the boy you loved, how it warmed him, held him, touched every part of him all at once, its area the circumference of Harry himself._

_You reached out, once, while Harry slept, and took his limp hand in yours, and had felt like a thief for it, had felt both guilty and triumphant that in sleep Harry hadn’t pulled away, had instead curled his fingers around yours and sighed contentedly. You would give anything to hold Harry’s hand now, to have him beside you instead of this blond boy. But just the suggestion of memory serves a purpose, and with another body beside you, and your eyes closed, you can almost imagine yourself back home._

“Lou? Lou.” 

Hands are shaking him. Louis fights to come around, to escape the stupor of anxiety he’s fallen into. He blinks to see Niall in front of him, both delight and worry on his face. 

“You came back.”

“I did.”

“And you’re here to stay?”

Louis nods. “Until it’s finished, yeah.”

Niall doesn’t question this, though his worried look persists. “He’s been asking for you, you know.”

“Asking who?”

“Not like that. In his sleep. Well, when he does sleep. He’s started meditating most nights, usually outside, alone. But when he sleeps near us we can all hear him. He’s missed you, Louis.”

A lump forms in Louis’ throat and he stands under his own strength, some form of hope restored. “Take me to him, would you?”

“Sure, Lou.” 

As Niall leads him through the dispersing crowd, Louis registers the slight heaviness to his friend’s walk. Upon seeing the others Louis realizes they all bear marks of weariness, of malcontent. The old bus is parked under a row of cherry trees along a curb, an orange parking permit displayed in the window (Taylor’s handiwork, Louis is sure). 

He’s greeted by smiles and warm nods as he steps into the vehicle, and Liam snaps to attention, his face instantly asking for the assurance that Louis gives with a small smile. Liam breathes a Zayn-sounding sigh of relief and motions to the back of the bus.

“He’s been asleep only a few minutes, but he’ll want to know you’re back.” 

Harry lies curled in on himself, his robes a Grecian mess of ripples and divots around his gangly limbs. Louis sinks to his knees and hesitates, his arm half outstretched. _I have a soul,_ he reminds himself, and completes the gesture, resting his hand on Harry’s shoulder. 

The healer stirs, his eyes blinking open and revealing glazed pupils. At the sight of Louis’ face Harry’s gaze focuses and he uncurls and sits up, his lips forming into a smile. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to come back,” he says, voice soft and raspy, sleep-deep.

“How did you know I would?” 

Harry moves over slightly in answer, offering Louis the bit of bed beside him. “I’ve been having dreams too. Your nightmares haunt me now.”

Louis hides his grimace with a smirk. “Just ‘cause I’m back don’t get to thinking… well I’m not following your god’s rules, Harry. I’m done with that.” In demonstration Louis cups Harry’s jaw in his hand and thumbs along the healter’s cheekbones. 

“Are you fighting for me?” Harry leans into the touch, his whole demeanor changing from exhaustion to joy. 

“Yes,” Louis whispers, positioning himself in the proffered bed space. 

Harry’s smile holds a hint of pity, but Louis pays this no mind, instead cuddling close to his former-always-best friend, pressing their thighs together, their hearts together, wrapping his arms around Harry, making his circumference match Harry’s broad shoulders. Within moments he’s blissfully relieved from his anguishes as Harry tentatively mirrors his hold. Louis falls asleep. 

*

The days are longer than before, for Harry, for them all. The lines of pilgrims stretch around the memorials and monuments and down the mall to snake through the underbelly of the city like anchor chains lining the edges of delineated privilege. The media are made up of all the major networks now; anchors whose faces Louis saw growing up now flock with their cameramen and padded microphones, desperate for a more incredible testimonial than the last. 

Louis learns that when people have something to gain, they very rarely oppose something on moral conscience alone. So it is with the whole of D.C. Harry’s message is palatable enough that once coated in the sugar of his magic hands, peace is what everyone wishes for, if only it were practical. The elimination of poverty is clearly everyone’s goal, if only the specifics weren’t so terribly complicated. Ending racism and love towards all is the most noble of ambitions, especially when it remains too pure an ideal to ever move from the sphere of motivation to the sphere of implementation. But the lip service is paid, and Louis stands by silently, wracking his brain for an anecdote as Harry is promised change for his touch, used as a political shoe polish for those whose feet are caked in manure. 

For a week Louis sleeps in peace, though, and Harry doesn’t push him away. Neither does the healer draw him any closer, though, and there’s an unspoken understanding that their previous passions are permanently behind them.

Harry shuffles sideways and allows Louis to wrap him close, as he does every night. The bus is quiet, peaceful even, for many of the Eleven have begun to sleep under the stars of the warm Virginia sky, the better to kiss and fuck and drink in peace. Only Cara and Bleta remain in the bus, and they’re very obviously occupied. 

“You only came back to change my mind,” Harry mutters between them.

Louis follows his crab-dance, aligning their bodies once more. “Yeah. About several things.” 

“Lou…” 

“Don’t shake your head. If your God is so powerful, so perfect, why be jealous of me? Why bother about one little human. Is He scared I have more power than Him? Can He not tolerate one more human loving His son?” Louis pauses and takes Harry’s hand, noting how cool and smooth it feels, like the joint of a marble statue sanded by the touches of passersby, and somehow that fits, for Harry’s hands have touched so many, and maybe he’s been worn away too. 

Taken with a sudden flush of protection, Louis bends and presses his lips to Harry’s knuckles. With the peaks and valleys under his mouth, Louis inhales Harry’s scent, the soft perfume about him that ferments from settled sunlight; it’s a tonic to Louis, addictive, and it takes every ounce of his self control not to keep his mouth to Harry’s hand forever. 

When he looks up Harry’s eyes have filled with tears. 

“You make me doubt, Lou,” he whispers, his lips closing around the words as if trying not to let more confessions slip past their guard. 

“Is your faith so frail it can’t withstand this?” Louis squeezes his best friend’s fingers, remembering all the times he had done so when they were boys, all the reassurances, the reminders of protection, the touches of glee and excitement they’d shared. 

“I’m afraid to answer.” 

“Then don’t. Just let me stay with you. Let me be near you, Harry, please I—” Louis fights to control the break in his voice, “I can love you better than God.” 

Something dangerous glints in Harry’s eyes for a second before his face regains placidity. But he doesn’t pull his hand away. 

“I wish I could say I’ve forgotten what that feels like. So I could ask you to remind me.”

It’s the closest to desperation Louis has ever heard the healer come, and he shivers with the thrill of knowing that his mere presence has worked, has chipped away at the god-ness of his boy. With hot, anxious hands Louis palms from Harry’s rib cage down to his hips and to the soft curve of thighs that hold between them the holiest of holies. Louis parts Harry’s legs, sliding his hands under gatherings of fabric to find what he seeks. 

Harry is already half hard and trembling, every graze of Louis’ fingers causing him to shiver and twitch. 

“I was meant to be untouched. To be holy. To have never been breached, to have never had you inside of me.” 

This doesn’t deter Louis. “Why would your God forbid it, Harry? Because I think,” Louis begins to clench and slide his fist gently over Harry’s hardness, “I think it was beautiful, what we did.”

Harry swallows audibly, masking the snick of his wetness meeting Louis’ skin. “Can’t you see, Lou, He is so beautiful that nothing else can compare, he swallows up all other beauties just by existing. It would be like…” Harry pauses and groans, his skin beginning to grow damp with perspiration, “It would be like equating a brook to the ocean.” 

“The only difference is vastness,” Louis argues, the counterpoint coming easily to him. “The ocean is limitless and deep and secretive. But you can know everything about a brook. You can know that it truly loves you back.” Harry groans, jolting as Louis smoothes over his cockhead. “You’re just a boy, Harry, like me. What do we know of oceans.”

“A week with you and I can’t feel anything but desire. How do you do this to me?” Harry’s confession is softer than a whisper, and Louis has to lean close to catch the end of his words.  
Wetting his fingers with spit, he presses against Harry’s rim, soothing the tension there until he can slip inside the healer. Harry arches backwards and his abdominals clench and release. 

“How do you _know_ , Lou, how do you know where to touch me…”

“Because we’re the same,” is Louis’ hasty answer, hasty because his own cock has filled his boxers and he needs to free it. He does so, slipping the fabric below his hardness and down to his thighs. 

“Then I want to touch you there too,” Harry states, and his hand moves in slow motion towards his mouth before he sucks two fingers in. 

Louis welcomes Harry’s touch between the crease of his cheeks, but he’s unprepared to be entered, not really comprehending that Harry would want to slip his sacred hands into mortal sin. He relaxes eventually, rolling his hips to guide Harry as he learns, his own fingers doing the same below him. 

With a whimper Harry bears down, legs shuddering. “More,” he begs, thighs impossibly wide, begging, and so Louis obliges, wetting himself with spit and crumpling the pleats of Harry’s robe up to better find the way inside him. Louis takes his time withdrawing his hand, needing to memorize the depths of Harry with his fingerprints.

The joining is different this time. Harry cries out in pleasure and not pain, and his pelvis loosens beautifully as his chest heaves. His fingers are still inside of Louis, now unmoving with his concentration gone elsewhere, but Louis can still feel their arch, their pressure, the slight pulse against his walls. He thrusts into Harry, then back against the healer’s fingers.  
The air around them begins to turn damp, passion beading on their necks, their foreheads. Louis vaguely hears departing footsteps, sees the shadows of the two girls exciting the bus, probably trying to give them some semblance of privacy, but he can’t bring himself to care. He would fuck Harry in the open, shameless, with the world watching. He would do it proudly.

“Lou,” Harry gasps, his voice ragged, and presses deeper with his fingers, drawing Louis tighter against him, filling himself completely. 

“You like having all of me?” Louis asks, panting already with their friction.

“All of you.” Harry’s eyes clench shut and he shudders as Louis thrusts again, faster this time, sharper. 

“I can give you this,” Louis whispers, leaning down against Harry’s ear as he continues his rhythm, “This and my heart.”

Harry’s fingers slide back and forth in response, his thumb forming bruises against the fleshy plush of Louis’ bum. When he crests on Louis’ spot, it’s all too much, and Louis spills his release in a gush. As he’s filled with the impregnation Harry’s stomach swells. 

“I’ll claim all of you, in every way, if you let me,” Louis declares as he smears Harry’s beading pre-cum down his neglected shaft, making it shiny in the mix of moonbeams and streetlights. Rocking backwards, he eases out and guides Harry’s fingers from his body as well. “I can be jealous too, you know.” 

“Lou?” 

Harry’s question is answered by Louis’ change in position. He doesn’t use his hands to guide Harry into him, instead allowing for trial and error, for the slide of Harry’s cock to catch against his rim, for the swollen glands of Harry’s engorged head to stretch him with near misses. 

Harry forms the word ‘please’ on his lips, his spit pulling apart in strings between the pink of them, but he can’t gather the strength to actually speak. With a smile Louis sinks down, letting his weight work with gravity until all at once he’s pierced. He’s unable to keep from moaning at the stretch, at the ache of a god inside him, at how marvelous it is to cradle divinity within his core. Though he’s sensitive and spent, he clenches his pelvis and uses his knees to lift himself up and down in a churning that nearly numbs him, so great is its intensity. His hole aches at the barely slick slide, and he realizes with a far away sort of shock that for the first time his pleasure is so great that normal, temporary pain has become noticeable again.

He notes that Harry has frozen. “Baby, breathe for me.”

Harry gulps in a breath and bursts into tears the next instant.

“Can I cry? Is that… is that okay?”

“Oh my love. Yes, cry, sweetheart.”

Harry sobs out, “I’m _part_ of you, I’ve only been part of God, but Lou…” Harry gasps, “You can encompass me too, make me one with you, and I can’t control this, I can’t…”  
Harry is writhing now, his face flushed and eyes black and heartbeat visibly pounding through his veins, and Louis realizes that the healer doesn’t know _how_ to unleash the surge inside of him. With small, tight rotations Louis rolls his hips, eliciting another groan that sends Harry’s head backwards and his eyes fluttering closed. 

“Yes, you’re safe in me, always safe inside me. Harry look at yourself, you’re ready, you’re ready to let go.” Louis’ words have little impact on Harry’s struggle for self control. His eyelids clench and his face starts to redden. 

“To drink of God is to never thirst again... but Louis,” Harry’s hands come to rest warm and heavy on Louis’ hip bones, stilling him, “I can’t quench what I feel for you, not if I swallowed you down for a thousand years.” 

Louis rises up so Harry can slip from him. The healer watches. 

“It’s like being born again,” Harry whispers as his cock emerges, red and wet and wrinkled and still fiercely hard. Beads of precum run in rivulets from Louis’ hole to collect in his pubic hair and cling there before dripping. 

“Once I asked my mother what I must do to be born again, because how could I go back inside of her? But all this time. The answer was you.”

Tenderly Louis’ fingers take over from the walls of his body. He runs his thumb along the slit of Harry’s head, around the edge of it, pushing back crinkled foreskin and divoting gently into the crevice until the flesh he strokes is so engorged it glistens, taught like a ripe cherry. 

“Feel this?” Louis cups Harry’s swollen balls and squeezes his shaft. “Your god has never felt this. He doesn’t know this kind of _need_. How it hurts, how it burns.” 

“Lou…” Harry is catatonic, writhing now. 

“ _Be human with me._ Come for me, Harry.” 

Louis feels it before he sees, for his eyes are fixed on Harry’s face, on the gaping roundness of his mouth and the questions rooted in his eyebrows. At last he looks down to the sea foam binding his wrists, to the melted pearls weeping from his knuckles. 

“Oh Harry.” Louis sinks against the healer, sated in a way he’s never known. “It could be like this always. We could give each other new life.”

Louis presses his sticky palms to Harry’s shoulders and aligns their jaws until their noses touch. Though they’ve just been inside each other, never have they engaged in the most intimate of affections, and Louis wants to kiss his best friend soundly, deeply, perfectly, to cement his claim, to prove his love, to show his devotion. He wants Harry’s lips beneath his, feeling the truth of every promise he breathes, tasting the desire on his tongue. 

Before Louis can connect their mouths Harry turns away. 

“You ask me for everything. He asks me for _more_ than everything. And you won’t tell me honestly who to trust, because you love me, Lou, and you want me for yourself, even if it means I betray the God of the universe.”

With hot thighs still blood-flushed from their sex Louis squeezes Harry’s hips and flips them over, cradling the taller boy against him, caging him with all four limbs. 

“Not just for me, Harry, for everyone, for each single human, for _all_. Harry He can’t hoard you, He can’t use you like this.” 

Harry buries his face in the crook of Louis’ shoulder and sighs heavily. “Next time I’ll kiss you, I promise.” 

“Shhh, baby,” Louis coos, not caring that such a declaration means Harry has decided this will be the last time. Contenting himself with the weight of his lover as an anchor, Louis falls asleep. 

*

The morning dawns red and birdsong wakes Louis from his slumber. Groggily he shifts himself from where he’s pressed against Harry’s back and untangles one arm from around the healer’s waist. He watches as air enters and exits Harry’s parted lips; his green eyes are closed delicately, no tension in his face as he sleeps, and Louis is struck by how very young he looks this way, how very like the boy of nineteen he actually is. 

_And you thought I would give him over to you just like that,_ Louis thinks, or maybe he prays it, he doesn’t know. _Never. I’m going to make him see. I’m going to expose what you really are._

Harry eventually stirs as the bus is filled with morning sunbeams. He smiles at Louis, but says nothing as he slips on a clean robe and runs his fingers through the tangles of his curls. 

“Let me do that,” Louis offers, and Harry is reticent at first, but eventually allows Louis to comb his hair. It is in this intimate display that Taylor finds them. Her footfalls on the bus’s steps are purposefully loud, and announce her presence. 

“Harry? Today’s the day, then. Can I get you any breakfast?” She gives Louis a nod, but her attention is focused on the healer, and she looks nervous. 

“I need to meditate a while… perhaps maybe then.” 

“A crowd has already gathered in front of the capital. You’ll need your strength. And you’ll have to eat something at the banquet this evening, Harry. You can’t just give a nationwide address on _crystal energy_.” 

Harry blinks and gives Louis an apologetic look. “You could go with Taylor and find some food?” 

“Right, I can do that, yeah.” 

As Louis follows Taylor out of the bus she reaches back and takes his hand reassuringly. 

“You gave him one night of solid sleep. That’s more than any of us have been able to do.” 

“Taylor, what’s today?” 

“It’s the reason we came to DC to start with. Senator Graves asked him to come to a banquet hosted by him and his colleagues,” she tucks a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear, “And then he’s been invited to address the Senate.” 

“What for? Are they stopping the war, then?” 

Taylor gives him a withering glance. “What do you think. But I suppose the more people hear his message, the better. The whole nation will be watching tonight. We thought it was a chance we couldn’t refuse.” 

Louis chews his lip a moment before responding. “You know what Zayn would say.” 

“Why don’t you tell me.” 

“They’re trying to use him.” 

“Of course they are. But this is the very government that sent you over there, Louis. The people responsible for the bloodshed. He has the chance to change their _hearts,_ not just talk to masses of citizens that have no real power. This could alter everything.”

“It won’t,” Louis says under his breath, but Taylor has already hurried off towards where Niall and Kendall are standing with clipboards and lists. 

Louis doesn’t go and find food; he knows Harry won’t eat it anyways. Instead he orders the crowd awaiting them into lines, helping Liam and Aiden to situate the most urgently sick or injured to the front of the queue. 

By late morning they’re in the thick of it, shuffling desperate people towards the miracles they seek. When the shadows grow long on the concrete mall, Taylor comes to fetch Harry away, and the remaining hopeful are told to return the next day. Louis silently shadows Harry and Taylor as they make their way towards the Capitol, flanked by press and devotees. Camera flashes can’t compete with the heat of the summer sun, and in its radiance Harry shines like he did that night atop the hill when God lifted him halfway to the heavens and filled him with otherworldly light.

As they approach the Capitol steps Louis sees the glinting of police helmets, rows and rows of them, and he wonders if it’s an official escort until a familiar face catches his eye. Zayn is at the fore of the SDS, his feet spread, his shoulders square, ready to confront the man he’d once followed. 

The helmets form a barrier, a walkway, their armour-clad bodies parting the Red Sea of silent demonstrators standing with no words on their lips, just cool betrayal and eyes of condemnation. Senator Graves is there to meet them, others at his side, and Taylor ignores Zayn’s eyes to walk up and offer the man her hand. Harry, though, he stops before Zayn, ignoring the police officers that separate them from each other. Louis comes to his side. 

“Not even for love, Harry?” Zayn says calmly, hands clasped together. “Does obedience mean that much to you?” 

“They will hear a message of peace tonight. Peace to _all_. You left me before I could reach this goal, my brother. I always wanted this change. I always hoped to reach the ears of those that could make a difference.” 

Zayn chuckles and shakes his head, a weary, manic smile coming to his face. “You already have. Look at us. _We_ are your people, Harry, the oppressed, the common, the fighters, the dreamers. Why would a god send you for the likes of _them_ , the rich, the pigs, the slave masters, those with blood on their hands. If that is your god, then he has wasted the power of infinite beings. You could destroy the wheel, and yet you beg the chariot to slow down.” 

Louis jumps at the ferocity with which Zayn spits at Harry’s feet. The SDS leader turns then, and at his signal the crowd slowly slips away, leaving the police lines a single geometric event on the dirty concrete. 

“My boy! Pleased to meet you. May I call you Harry?” 

Senator Graves steps into Harry’s space, a burly man dressed in a sharp suit, and holds out his hand. 

“I’m—I’m sorry, sir, I only touch those I heal.” 

“Of course. Let’s get you inside, there are many people eager to make your acquaintance.” 

The Rotunda is filled with circular tables surrounding a raised platform. It is atop this that the senator leads Harry, while Louis, Taylor, and the rest of the Eleven take the prepared seats for them towards the back. The room is already filled; at every table sit people dressed to the nines, buzzing with excitement. They fall silent as Harry is paraded through their center. 

“Our great nation has never seen the like of this young man before you; the crowds call him The Healer, and he has been advocating for peace in these trying times, as have I, and you all. We are honored to host him tonight at this fundraiser, and to work with him towards our common goals. Harry, we have some very special guests for you tonight.”

Louis sits up straighter as he strains to see over the crowd. Three wheelchairs are brought towards the platform, and Louis can just make out the uniformed men seated, crumpled, twisted into them. His stomach begins to churn and his body to rise, but Cara pulls him back down. 

“Our bravest men, the reason we here tonight seek a bipartisan end to this war. This is First Lieutenant Richard Pollock, who served in—” 

Louis stumbles from his seat and out the entranceway, somehow holding the bile in his mouth until he finds a garbage can. He heaves for what seems like hours. When he has no more to puke and can breathe again, he realizes that tears are running down his face. Without stopping to rinse his mouth of the burn or cool the redness of his skin, he runs back the way he’d come, stopping at the Rotunda doors to brace himself. 

Pushing off with a steady stride he walks through the tables, feeling more and more eyes turn towards him as he goes. Harry is on his knees, his face blank, as the senator shakes hands with the three newly functional veterans and holds a mic up for them to describe their miraculous transformation. The Rotunda reverberates with clapping and chatter, as if the attendees had just witnessed the greatest magic show of their lives. As if Harry were selling peace on an infomercial. As if the suffering of others were a game, an entertainment, a price point.

Harry doesn’t see Louis until he reaches the second row. Their eyes lock as Louis climbs the platform’s steps. 

“Get up.” 

“Lou…” 

“Get up,” Louis says again, his voice soft enough only Harry can hear. “You have to address the Senate.” 

Harry stares up at him, so young, so earnest, his fragile naivety finally broken. “What if I can’t?” 

“That doesn’t matter much, does it? It only matters that you try.” 

The senator has finally realized Louis’ presence, and comes towards them. 

“Senator Graves, would you please point me towards the Senate floor.” 

The old man smiles, a bit taken aback, but turns to address his guests. “Please, enjoy your food, we will return after Harry gives his speech to the nation!” 

Taylor and the others catch them up as they walk from the Rotunda to the Senate chambers, and Louis doesn’t have to say anything to the others; he knows by the looks on their faces that they understand. Liam looks especially calm, the peace of internal resolution erasing the worry lines from his face. Eleanor pulls her hair back in a pony and Bleta removes the dangling earrings in her ears. 

At the chamber Harry slips from their sides and follows Senator Graves to the front, where he’s positioned before the cameras of all the world’s media. Senators meander back to their desks and the visitor’s balcony grows quiet. Soon only Harry is standing in the chamber, his white robe and long curls looking distinctly out of place. Senator Graves takes the floor and introduces his guest, and if Louis had any doubts, they evaporate when every single Republican senator joins their Democratic colleagues in giving Harry a standing ovation. As the clapping dies down Harry bends his head, takes a breath, and then faces the red dots of the cameras. Louis’ blood is a malstrom beneath his skin. 

“When I was a boy, I believed that goodness could be found inside every person. That it need only be looked for. I believed also that peace was a universal desire, a thing that could unite us as one human family of brothers and sisters. I thought if I could only make everyone see that they could live in harmony, they would gladly do so, that they would gladly repent of their evils if shown a better way, if shown a world where love reigned instead of power or money. I have preached this, and I have sworn to you that this is true. But I was wrong.” 

It’s the calm before a storm. Flakes of wallpaper fall and settle at Louis’ feet, knowing, perhaps, that such vibrations have already spelled their end. Liam stifles a sob and Kendall takes Eleanor’s trembling hand. 

“I was sent here for a purpose. It took me so long… but I now know what it is. You,” Harry moves his gaze to the senators, “Have turned this body of government into a den of thieves! You profit from the spoils of war.” The floor reverberates. “You care nothing for the victims of your imperialism, as you care nothing for reform in your own country. You have built your house not upon the rock of goodness, but the bones of those you’ve oppressed. There is no desire for peace in your hearts, no desire for equity and justice. You would bring me here as a token, as a performer to give _you_ peace for the cripples of your war. You are altogether corrupt and soulless, and not one of you deserves the trust of your fellow man.” 

Senators begin to stand, and yelling starts, but Harry’s voice rings louder than it all, the power of him swelling palpably into the room. The hairs on the back of Louis’ arm stand on end. 

“I am asking you,” Harry directs into the camera, “To not sit silently and pray for peace, or march in the streets calmly as I have led you to do, for no amount of love can purge this temple of greed. I cannot ever save you, don’t you see? You _must save yourselves._ You must save those you love. You must not wait for gods or saviors, or you will wait forever.” 

Harry raises his hands up, higher and higher, and from his palms a twisting of air spirals to the ceiling and then in the stagnant indoors of the senate floor a _wind_ begins to blow, twisting Harry’s robe around his limbs and ruffling his hair. 

“Quickly, outside,” Louis tugs on Nick, the nearest him, and the others follow. As Louis slips out the chamber doors he sees desks rattle from their brackets and topple over, falling with resounding crashes. A mad scramble ensues and Louis gets separated from the Eleven as the oncoming whistles of police fill his ears. In the melee of fleeing politicians he’s carried along to the Capitol’s entrance and flushed from the building. A terrible crumbling echos throughout the mall and the ground shakes and Louis is shoved to the ground and nearly trampled, and by the time he can manage to surface again the crowds have fled and he and the media alone witnesses Harry descending the Capitol steps, the apocalypse around him, dust and paper and debris swill swirling and chunks of crumbled pillars lying at his sandaled feet. 

Sirens fill Louis’ ears.

“Harry!” He runs towards his best friend, stumbling through the cameramen. Louis knows it’s useless to try and protect him now, but he has to, he needs to. Finally he reaches the healer, propelling into him in his haste to drag him to safety. Harry’s eyes are glassy and wet, but focused. 

“Harry,” Louis’ hands are trembling but he still pulls Harry close. “We have to get out of here. Call up the wind again, cause the sun to rise do—do anything.” 

Harry slips from Louis’ arms and drops to his knees, the opposite of action, and all Louis can do is crouch beside him, shielding him from the camera flashes. 

“I… I can’t. I can’t do anything, Lou. He’s punishing me. He’s left me. I’m alone.”


	9. The Last Supper

Fury rises in Louis’ veins and he yanks Harry up from under his armpits. “You’re _not_ alone, I’m here, come on, they’ll hunt you for this, they’ll—”

“We’ve got you, don’t worry.” 

Louis somehow isn’t surprised to see Zayn holding out his hand. Around them have gathered the hundreds of silent protesters from before, only now they are not silent, they hold hammers and blocks of wood and fire and are chasing away the cameras, chanting, singing, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

“Zayn,” Louis whispers, his throat closing up. 

“We’ve already taken the others. A safe house, not far away. You’ve done enough for one night, Harry. You’ve sparked the revolution. Over two hundred and twenty-five million people just watched you destroy the Senate chambers. They all had their eyes opened to the truth. And now we need you alive. Come on.” 

Secure with the SDS encircling them, Harry and Louis are ushered through the chaotic mall and towards DC proper. Night has fallen, and the sky now serves to silhouette the fires that burn in tall orange streaks towards the stars. Too many sirens to count meld together in a constant scream of institutional death. The sound of breaking glass punctuates the hasty rhythm of their walk. 

The safe house is a small two-story with a yard and back garden. They’re directed up the flight of stairs to the second story door and told to rap three times. Louis has barely completed this action before their escort disappears into the night. 

“Shit,” Niall exclaims upon opening the door. “We’ve all been so worried.” 

The rest of the Eleven are inside, huddled on the worn couch or seated slumped around the dining table. Harry looks them over with the air of someone seeing them for the first time, and when he speaks his voice is soft and _shy._

“You could have abandoned me.” 

“No.” Shawn shakes his head from his seat on the floor and the others make nods or sounds of agreement. With a sad smile Harry wanders through his followers and disappears into the far room, clearly needing to be alone. 

“Right, I say we all get some food,” Eleanor states, standing and motioning the others up as well. “We can’t fight the system without energy.” 

The pragmatic aspects of their situation lend Louis a small amount of sanity. Nick turns on the radio and they discover that all over the country, government property is being destroyed by protestors and precincts burned to the ground. Riot police are out in full force, and the National Guard has been called up. There is a warrant out for Harry with the charge of domestic terrorism, destruction of property, and crimes against the state. The country is in a state of national emergency. The newscasters are rattled too, it’s obvious in their tones. No one knows how to arrest a man that can wield the power of a god, and a good many people seem, from the reports, more inclined to believe in Harry than desire his arrest. 

Having nothing else to do, Louis paces the room, checking from the edges of the closed curtains for lights outside, vehicles across the street, anything at all coming near the little house.

“Lou,” Taylor lays a hand on his shoulder. “Come help me set the table. We’re safe now, no one knows we’re here.” 

Louis shakes his head, his eyes flickering once more to Harry, who has returned to the group only to sit still and numb on the edge of an armchair, staring at his hands as if they are wet with blood and not sweat. 

“You don’t understand. They won’t let him just disappear.” 

“Help me set the table, Lou.” Taylor’s face acknowledges the truth of his words, but her eyes speak too. Louis nods and follows her, knowing she’s only trying to help. 

The others mill about, some sit on the floor braiding each other’s hair, some prepare the food they’ve managed to find stored in the apartment’s pantry: loaves of sourdough, two bottles of wine, some corned hash, and canned peas. 

Liam lays out plates while Cara sets glasses. Louis grabs handfuls of silverware from the top right kitchen drawer and places them around the plates like he remembers his mother doing for fancy occasions, like holidays and birthdays and funerals. It seems fitting.

He runs out of spoons half way through the place settings. “I’ve only got thirty pieces of silverware,” he announces to Taylor, who shrugs and carries on placing food on hotpads.

“Guess we’ll share.” 

When they all finally sit down to eat, the somber mood becomes even more apparent. Six on one side of the table, six on the other, and Harry at the end, and not one smile to spare between them. Bleta breaks the silence. 

“It could have been worse today. We should be grateful.” 

“We’re holed up in someone’s upper rooms, probably with warrants out for _our_ arrests too. Harry literally destroyed the Capitol building. On live national TV. It’s plenty bad.” Nick plops both his elbows down on the table, disrupting the look that Shawn and Niall are sharing. 

“We all knew the risks of trusting you, Harry,” Eleanor says softly. She hasn’t stopped fiddling with her napkin since they sat down. “And we all agreed to follow where you led.” 

“No,” Aiden shakes his head and points a finger first at Eleanor, then Harry, “No, we really didn’t know. We didn’t sign up for this.” 

“What’d you mean _we didn’t sign up for this_ we knew who—”

“I mean _this_ —” Aiden motions to their present state, “This being fugitives. This was supposed to be about bringing _healing_ and _peace_ to the world and now it’—-it’s morphed into something else. Something we never agreed to.” 

“Then leave.” Taylor spits, her lips forming the words from utter stillness. “Walk away. Leave the side of a person who can raise the dead because you’re _scared_.”

Aiden backs down, his demeanor melting. “You know that’s not what I meant. I just wish things could have stayed the same.” 

“So do I, in a way.” Harry says, standing then and reaching for the first loaf of sourdough. This he tears apart in his large hands, in half first, then in quarters, then in eighths, and distributes the pieces around. “We’ve been together through so much, and you’ve all been better friends than I had any hope of deserving. I hope you’ll always remember me.” 

The table falls silent as Harry breaks the second loaf in the same manner and then begins pouring the wine, his healing hands grasping the smooth glass bottle as if they are formed to it, as if his skin is some middle substance between glass and human. 

“What on earth do you mean, Harry. Of course we’ll always remember you.” Niall’s eyebrows crease. He nervously takes a too-large bite of bread. 

Harry returns the wine bottle to the table and sits back down. “I mean,” he looks at his lap as he speaks, his bowed head making his curls fall in curtains to his cheeks, “One of us here will betray God tonight.” 

Cara drops her spoon, a grenade in the silence. Nick protests first. 

“Harry, I would never. I’m scared for us all, but I would never.” 

“Me either, Harry,” Aiden is quick to add. 

Taylor heaves a sigh. “You know where I stand. Beside you.” 

“As do I,” Eleanor pledges, “And I,” Cara affirms. 

“I’ll always believe in you,” Kendall swears, tears shining in her eyes. 

“You know I’ve got your back,” Niall confirms, his voice a bit choked up. 

“Same, Harry. Always.” Shawn puts his arm around Niall as he says this. 

“No matter what comes, I’m here.” Liam plants his hands palm down on the table, as if sealing his flesh to the wood will constitute a bonded pledge. 

Bleta raises her wine glass to Harry. “You have my loyalty.” 

“I’ll be here for you too,” Ed states. 

Louis can’t speak around the lump in his throat; he realizes the truth as eleven pairs of eyes turn to him. Stuttering a moment, he tries to part his lips, but his awe and euphoria render him mute. His cheeks stain red as he manages to croke out, “Harry—” before tears choke his voice and breathing becomes a torture. Taylor hurries to place a hand on his shoulder, her other rubbing circles into his back, and soon he can gulp down air again. 

“None of us want to betray God, Harry. You have to know that,” Taylor insists.

Harry meets Louis’ eyes for a brief, terrible second before he pushes up from the table. “I’ll be outside in the garden. I need to talk with Him.” 

“Harry it’s not—”

“He’ll be fine.” Taylor shushes Niall with an outstretched hand. “Let’s all finish eating what we can.” 

Louis manages only two more mouthfuls of bread, and nothing else. Seconds drag to minutes. The table is cleared, dishes are done, wine is divvied out, and still Harry remains outside. Louis checks on him through the window several times, though he doesn’t move, he remains hunched over a large stone, his knees on the ground, his head bowed. 

Only when the wind picks up and Louis hears the spattering of rain against the pane of glass does he announce to Taylor that he’s going to bring Harry in. She nods, and several others turn his way in acknowledgement. He pulls on his shoes and closes the door behind him as he clunks down the rickety wooden stairs that lead into the back garden. The moon shines brightly even with the sparse clouds, so much so Louis is surprised at the existence of the rain. 

The manicured grass around the garden is tender and soft, pliant under Louis’ feet, not crunchy like crabgrass or spikey like the groundcovers down in more desert areas, so his footfalls don’t alert Harry to his presence. As he approaches his huddled friend, Louis realizes Harry is weeping. 

“Please, please God, please let this cup pass from me, please don’t make me choose. Please, I beg you, I just don’t understand, I don’t know how we humans can ever love each other enough if all love must be passed first through You. How, God, how is loving between us _wrong_ , why must You demand I heal only with _Your_ love, and never with _my own_? Why have you condemned me to never heal the one person I truly—” 

Louis places a hand on his shoulder and Harry stops, his words replaced with a silence borrowed from the dawn of time. He stands after a moment, and Louis takes both his hands. 

“It’s you,” Louis declares, pride and wonder engulfing his heart. “You are the one betraying God tonight.” 

Harry meets his eyes. “God _needs_ an unjust world.” Tears begin tracking down his cheeks. “If everything were perfect, who would believe, who would need faith or hope or miracles. Or God. He steals the love between us for Himself, because as long as we love only Him, we can excuse not loving each other.” 

Louis begins to cry too, tears of relief, tears of joy. “Oh Harry.” 

“I can’t ever do it, Lou, I can’t ever fix the whole world with my two hands. He never meant me to. He only meant to use me, like a lottery ticket, like a prize, a band-aid to cover up the way things really _are_. Just like those politicians.” 

“I know, sweetheart.” 

“How have I been so _blind_.” Harry shakes his head, his curls and tears mingling, mixing on the plane of his skin. “It hurts so much, Lou, He’s wounding me. God, oh God. Why has He forsaken me?” 

“Because.” Louis draws his best friend close, for the first time touching him without reserve, letting the wash of yearning inside himself course through his nerves and out his fingertips. “Your soul has always belonged to me.” 

Harry’s mouth falls open in surprise, his eyes wide, too green in the moonlight, something in his pupils that resembles the essence of a nebula. Louis brings one hand to Harry’s jaw, the other ‘round the back of his neck, fingers in his curls, and leans upward. 

Louis kisses him. 

Nothing, no other sensation in all of his existence, can rival the pleasure that immediately floods through him. Harry is warm and pliant and sweet, eager even, his mouth searching out every angle with which to taste Louis, to explore him. Their noses smoosh against each other’s cheekbones, nostrils gasping for air like wild horses, neither of them caring that they can’t get it. 

The drag and suction and tender release, and the repetition of all three, become Louis’ entire world. Nothing else exists save the taste and smell and touch of the boy he loves, the boy who has _chosen him_ , the boy who is now making soft mewling sounds that reverberate between their lips…

So Louis nearly doesn’t near the soft _pop_ , like a soda can being opened. Harry’s lips slow, and then Louis smells the blood. His heart has only just begun to panic when Harry slumps against him, his hands grabbing at his clothes but coming away empty, like broken toy maws. 

WIth a half strangled cry Louis lowers them both to the grass, cradling Harry in his arms. The moonlight reveals a pool of scarlet on Harry’s ribcage, its circumference ever increasing. Instinctively he presses his palm against Harry’s heart, for that is what he’d done in Vietnam, that’s how he’d stopped the life from seeping out of people. 

Harry blinks up at him, his face calm, and Louis hates that most of all. He hears himself break into sobs as pinpoints of light interrupt his view of Harry’s pale face. Voices are approaching, voices and clinking and radio static and flashlights and the barking of dogs, and Louis understands. He strokes Harry’s brow and smiles down at him, and Harry returns the gesture, one dimple forming in his cheek. 

“Lou?” Harry’s pink lips are sponged in red now, blood filling the creases of his spit-shiny skin like crimson ink spread through fragile trenches. 

“My love?” Louis doesn’t recognize his own voice. 

“Forgive them. They don’t know what they’ve done.” 

And Louis nods, holding his smile, staving off the love in his eyes from turning to burning grief until Harry’s gaze has drifted upwards to the stars and become lost. 

The ground beneath him begins to shake, though at first Louis thinks this only the trembling of his own body overcome with pain. But no, the earth quakes, and peals of thunder began to ring out, though no lightning illuminates the heavens. 

Something skids to Louis’ left. The jangling has grown nearer, and now lights are pointed at him, though he can’t see who stands behind their brightness. He looks down to find a gun, its shiny black body too clean. 

“Hands up, step _away_ from the victim,” a voice rings out via megaphone, sounding mechanical, metallic, cold.

Louis shakes his head, a laugh starting deep in his belly and bubbling up through his throat. He clutches Harry’s body closer, hugging his limp form against his chest, burying his nose once more in the mass of curls he’s always loved so much. 

_”I’ll find you,”_ he whispers against Harry’s ear, “God cannot keep you from me.” 

He lays Harry down in the wet grass and stands, the gun held loosely in his left hand. 

“Drop your weapon! Step away from the victim!” 

Louis breathes in the damp air, relishing how it fills his entire chest now; the place at the bottom of his lungs where his nightmares lived is finally empty. At last, he’s healed. In the moonlight of the garden his fears have no grip on him, his memories are resolved, and he feels truly, deeply _free_. 

The wind blows, its raking chill ruffling the fringe of Louis’ hair. He raises his arm in answer, cocking the trigger with his thumb. 

“It is finished,” he calls out, just as the first bullet hits his chest. 

The moon disappears, and the world curtains to black.


End file.
